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Location: Good Rebel
By Matt Fallaize
HIGHVERN has a long relationship with the Channel Islands. Originally as part of one of Britain’s most prestigious private banks, it was one of the earliest firms in Jersey’s then nascent financial services industry. Today, as an independent, owner-managed business, it has nearly 100 staff in Jersey, working across fiduciary and funds services.
“The impact of the acquisition has been very positive, including our
HIGHVERN is now eager to build its profile in Guernsey, where it has operated only since March this year, having acquired Noble Trust, which had a 14-year presence and eight-strong team in St. Peter Port and a subsidiary in Zurich.
things and think this will resonate well in the Guernsey market place.
“We are all too aware that most people in Guernsey have probably never heard of HIGHVERN. We want people to know that HIGHVERN is now in Guernsey and wants to grow here,” said Richard Joynt, a Director of the company who leads its family office services.
appealed to our team and helped many with the transition.”
“In the initial discussions with Noble, the opportunities we saw to expand into Guernsey were very exciting for HIGHVERN. We also realised that their culture and ours were very similar. We feel we have gelled quickly.
said Richard. “We’re thrilled about that. It’s quite a big deal in our
“For us, a partnership with an independently owned firm was a prerequisite of the proposed transition,” said Françoise Bougourd, who was a Director of Noble and is now a Director of HIGHVERN. “When we were considering putting Noble up for sale, we were looking for similarities between two brands. We were adamant it wasn’t going to be a sale to a private equity. We had met the shareholders many months before the transaction went through and it was obvious they were going to be great to work with. There are so many similarities in the way we like to operate so it was a very natural fit for us. 50 | CONNECT
day-to-day experience as an office in Guernsey. We have more in terms of infrastructure support now, as well as group resources that we are able to draw upon. So far we are enjoying the HIGHVERN approach to business. We love the brand and we love the way they do We have a big ESG [environmental, social and governance] agenda –taking part in local beach cleans and looking to be more involved in the Guernsey Pollinator Project. I think these considerations HIGHVERN is also celebrating the unusual distinction of being shortlisted for two STEP (Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) awards this year. “It’s the first time we’ve been nominated for two,” business. STEP is purposefully very international now.” Richard’s extensive experience in the private wealth sector includes the last 20 years leading family office work, much of the time for ultra-high net worth clients. “Noble’s client base was private wealth and that’s where HIGHVERN started and it remains the core of our business: the largest constituent part and the longest established,” said Richard. “We quickly saw opportunities to become one team across the Channel Islands. That can mean economies of scale by having one service centre for back-office functions, but also one group of client-facing
staff, properly integrated, and this means we can genuinely be agnostic about whether a client wants to use Guernsey or Jersey. The message clients and prospective clients send us is that they tend to do business in Guernsey or Jersey not because one is better than the other but for historic, personal relationship or familial reasons. Both islands are fantastic private wealth centres.” Françoise noted a small number of technical differences between the islands’ trust laws – such as the role of the public trustee in Guernsey not found in Jersey, the nuances of the Guernsey Foundation Law and the more established notion of trustee mistake in case law in Jersey. “But, fundamentally, the islands are very similar, and so it’s a matter of clients’ and their advisors’ preferences,” she said. “They might prefer to work directly with Richard or directly with me in Guernsey, but our offering is such that being pan-Channel Islands we are fairly unique in the independent sector of our industry.” For many years, Françoise worked for large, corporate-led blue-chip companies leading various fiduciary teams until she decided that she wanted to be back in the independent sector to focus more on client service and delivery at a more personal level. With 35 years’ experience in the industry, Francoise joined Noble in 2018, and she was appointed to its Guernsey board in 2019 and its Swiss board in 2020. “The organisation has allowed me to focus on the element of the role which I enjoy most, which is building relationships with clients and their advisors. This is something which HIGHVERN are CONNECT | 51
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It’s key for us to raise our profile here and emphasise our commitment to this jurisdiction. We’d love to have more people wanting to come and join us on our journey as we grow.
Photographer: Paul Chambers
keen for me to continue with my role on the HIGHVERN board. “HIGHVERN is very keen to develop new client relationships and to deepen those existing relationships with clients. As part of our business culture, we adopt a director-led relationship model. What we hear from potential clients in the private equity-owned space is that often the relationship introduction with the client is at director level and then gradually their day-to-day contact is reduced, sometimes as far as to a junior administrator. We, therefore, consider that one of our unique selling points is that our business is director-led. Directors are supported in this by a number of other staff across the business, but clients start a relationship at director level and that’s where it remains. “As part of the acquisition process, we made personal courtesy calls to our clients to advise them of the HIGHVERN changes. Their questions were mainly around whether their relationships with us would change and whether staff and services would remain. We were able to reassure them of that continuity and, as expected, given the embedded relationships, there has been no reduction of our client base since the acquisition.” Richard explained why Noble was such an attractive acquisition to HIGHVERN. “We were actively looking to expand into Guernsey,” he said. “Any acquisitions or expansion was going to involve a business smaller in size. In the end, it was about the quality of the jurisdiction, Guernsey, the quality of the team at Noble, and the profile of its clients, who were mainly low-risk, long-standing and loyal. They’re 52 | CONNECT
loyal because they have received such excellent service. And Noble’s Swiss subsidiary allowed us to have a new foothold in two high-quality jurisdictions.” HIGHVERN also now has a presence in Ireland and London via startup teams rather than acquisitions. “Many of our client base are typically UK resident but non-domiciled individuals with many having been with Noble for 20 years,” said Françoise. “We have clients with typical fiduciary needs and interests – wealth structuring, holding various asset classes, such as investment portfolios, aircraft, yachts, antiques, chattels and managed property portfolios in the commercial and residential spaces. We also have some key UK resident clients for whom we perform family office-style work and take an active interest in their private affairs, alongside their onshore advisors. It is part of our core strategy to expand the Guernsey business and build on our family office services proposition with a focus on high-calibre, fullyadvised private wealth structures for ultra-high net worth families.” Richard said that HIGHVERN is working hard to grow its newly acquired business in Guernsey over the next six to 12 months – “we want people to understand that HIGHVERN is here and we’re ambitious for growth” – and that this is a propitious time for growth in the private wealth sector. “Honestly, I think the private wealth market in the past 12 months has been the most buoyant I’ve seen it in years,” he said. “It’s a great
place to be at the moment. We’ve seen lots of new opportunities. We’ve probably had HIGHVERN’s best pipeline of new business since it became independent six years ago. I think there’s a post-covid surge of pent-up business. A lot of wealthier people were waiting and seeing while the world felt like it was on pause. HIGHVERN is a big beneficiary of that type of business because a lot of those clients and their advisors like independent providers. Despite the fact that we’re not yet well-known in Guernsey, we’re quite well-known in the City, and there are well-placed referrers in the City with whom we have strong connections. “We’re seeing an increased number of enquiries about outsourced family office services. That’s when you are effectively providing services to a family at their own request because they are simply too busy to look after their own financial affairs. That’s a wonderful piece of business for Guernsey and Jersey. It’s not driven by tax, regulation or reporting – it’s driven by the need for absolute trust and high levels of service quality. The Channel Islands do that type of business really well and we want to grow further.” In many industries, businesses wanting to grow face the challenge – now arguably unprecedented – of retaining and moreover recruiting staff. This time last year, it was estimated that there were between 1,000 and 1,500 vacancies across the island’s labour market, and the pressure on employers has only grown since then. Financial services are affected as much as any industry and more than some. “I thought staffing in Jersey was a challenge until I came to work
in Guernsey over the summer and realised that over here it’s even tougher,” said Richard. “That’s another reason why it makes a lot of sense to have a pan-Channel Islands approach. We are now using staff in one office to do work in another office – as we continue our thinking of being a single business, it makes sense. We already outsource our client accounting to a firm in Mauritius and quality has been high with lower costs.” Françoise said it is important for high-quality businesses not to compromise on the need for high-quality staff even when they are very eager to recruit. “We want to raise the profile of the business to prospective clients and intermediaries, but also to prospective staff,” she said. “We get feedback from recruiters that nobody in Guernsey knows HIGHVERN yet. When they’re looking where they’re going to send CVs, we want HIGHVERN to be at the forefront of the minds of recruiters and potential employees.” “Even our good contacts and friends who are Guernsey lawyers are taking some time to recognise that we have expanded into Guernsey,” said Richard. “It’s key for us to raise our profile here and emphasise our commitment to this jurisdiction. We’d love to have more people wanting to come and join us on our journey as we grow.” END
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