I’m delighted to announce that the 10th edition of The Spear’s 500 – the indispensable guide to the top private client advisers, wealth managers, lawyers and service providers for high-networth individuals (HNWs) – is out now.
This year the print edition of the directory, which has been described as ‘the Michelin Guide of wealth’ and ‘the industry benchmark’, spans 564 pages and contains some 1,884 profiles of leading advisers specialising in fields from wealth management to tax, philanthropy, property, family law – and several others besides. (You’ll find private doctors, architects and jet brokers, too.)
Our aim in publishing this tome is clear: to provide the premier resource for HNWs in search of the highest-quality specialist advice and services to support their work, their lives, their families and their ambitions. We ensure that we achieve this goal by focusing – above all things – on the quality of the advisers and firms that we feature, and on the reliability of our rankings.
Each year, the Spear’s Research Unit reassesses and refreshes its list of leading providers in each sector by gathering data from and about the advisers and firms themselves, assessing submissions, collating nominations, carrying out peer reviews, canvassing experts and conducting hundreds and hundreds of interviews.
[See also: Everything you need to know about The Spear’s 500]
The advisers are then scored using a proprietary system that assigns different weightings to certain attributes. These scores then feed directly into a new annual set of rankings – the Spear’s Indices. Each of these indices is published first online and then in print.
It is important to note that each one of the advisers included is here on merit. It is not possible to buy one’s way into The Spear’s 500.
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However, not all profiles are equal. Some are ‘enhanced’, meaning that they are accompanied by an image of the adviser and their contact details, and include space for more information. This extra information appears under the heading ‘Adviser profile’ and offers an opportunity for advisers or their firms to more fully describe their practice and the ways in which they are able to assist their clients, in their own words. (For this opportunity, they pay a fee.)
Though The Spear’s 500 is the definitive guide to the private client ecosystem, the considerable print volume that we have launched today is not the end of the matter.
That’s because we have a digital resource, too. Over at spears500.com there are some 3,115 live profiles of active advisers that meet the high bar of quality required to be featured. (We have a further 1,252 profiles of inactive, suspended or disqualified profiles in our underlying database.)
Users of spears500.com can search and filter the live profiles by ranking, location, specialism and a number of other attributes. With continuous updates and more data it has become easier than ever to find precisely the right adviser.
The development of the Spear’s digital footprint has prompted some people to ask whether the print edition of the guide might be on its way out. Not likely.
It holds a special place in the hearts of many readers – and often on their coffee tables, in their libraries or even aboard their yachts. No wonder Travelex founder Sir Lloyd Dorfman called it ‘the pre-eminent publication of the wealth management sector’.
All this is testament to the usefulness of book itself, but more importantly to the quality of the people that are in it: the individuals who provide first-class advice and services, add real value to their clients – and make a tangible difference to their lives.
