Ex-Banker Launches Wealth Tech Firm for Super-Rich Families
(Bloomberg) -- Bobby Console-Verma isn't letting the pandemic slow down his business plans.
The former investment banker and fund manager has set up 1fs:Wealth, a London-based technology firm that aims to help family offices and rich individuals manage their assets. Console-Verma, 54, has recruited five staff members since March and built up an advisory board. He plans to hire more as the company now starts to take on its first clients.
“It is still possible to successfully build a business during these difficult times,” said Console-Verma, who has yet to meet several of his new employees in person. “Not having any distractions such as traveling to the office has meant that we have been incredibly productive.”
Family offices, the lightly regulated entities that manage money for the wealthy, have proliferated this century. There are more than 10,000 single-family offices globally, at least half of which were started in the past two decades, according to accounting firm EY, including those of Alphabet Inc.'s Eric Schmidt, British inventor James Dyson and media scion James Murdoch.
Console-Verma came up with the idea for his latest venture last year after previously co-founding London-based fund manager Tower Gate Capital, which was sold for an undisclosed sum in 2016. He also worked at Nomura Holdings Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG.
1fs:Wealth allows family offices and rich individuals to analyze their public and private investments in one digital platform, and also stores documents for their holdings. Console-Verma, who is chief executive officer, is looking to raise about $2 million in seed funding to help the firm develop artificial intelligence capabilities and a mobile-based version of its software.
Read more: How New Wealth, Few Rules Fuel Family Office Boom
Those with family offices typically “have accumulated numerous different types of physical assets, from properties to art pieces, jewelery, cars, private jets, yachts and so on,” said Vahe Vartanian, founder and CEO of membership group Global Family Office Community. “It is easy to lose track of where all of these assets are located, where they are in the world at a particular time, as well as the associated documents, such as deeds, insurance documents, receipts and valuations.”
The U.S. is the most developed market for family offices, with the majority set up more than a decade ago, according to a report from recruitment firm Agreus Group. About 6% of the nation's family offices have more than $5 billion of assets under management, while roughly a third control $500 million or less, the report found.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
-
Navigating Energy Crossroads: S Jaishankar's Call For Diversified Supply Chains At G20 Ministerial Meeting
As geopolitical fault lines continue to test maritime trade routes and commodity flows, Jaishankar's message remains pertinent: true economic resilience requires open markets, protected transit lines, and a genuine commitment to multilateral cooperation rather than coercion.
-
Indians Are Travelling, But Not Every Journey Is A Holiday | The Week In Whys
Pilgrims, patients and working women are the real travellers, and the system hasn't quite caught up with them.
-
Getting To Work Costs Women More | The Reason Why
It is not just about women paying more than men. It is about women paying much more in cities than in villages.
-
AI Bias In Investing Cannot Be Eliminated, But It Can Be Governed
Framing is a particularly important example as identical financial information presented in terms of gains rather than losses can lead an LLM to reach a different assessment.
-
Joining The Dots | Dark Skies, Steady Diya: Why Hope Holds This Diwali
With war, a weak rupee and foreign outflows weighing on sentiment, policymakers at the NDTV World Summit and market veterans at NDTV Profit Ignite: Diwali Edition offered the same advice: stay invested and filter out the noise.
-
The Curious Case of Equitas Small Finance Bank And A CEO Who Quit For Stock
PN Vasudevan believes persistent investor concerns over a perceived conflict of interest had become a governance overhang on Equitas Small Finance Bank's stock, even as the lender improved profitability and asset quality.
-
Talking Points This Week: AI Cash Burn, A Tiger Comeback And An India That Still Finds Its Own Path
India is not immune to higher oil or tighter global liquidity, yet its earnings base is broader, its domestic policy levers are still available.
-
Foreign Investors Own Half Of HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. An LTCG Cut Could Matter Most Here
Foreign portfolio investors have US$115 billion parked in HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank. If the government cuts long-term capital gains tax, Jefferies says returning foreign money could land here first.
