‘Reform’ for non-doms?
With the swingeing changes to the historic non-dom settlement enacted by the last Conservative and the current Labour government blamed for driving 10,800 HNWs from these shores in 2024 (according to Henley & Partners figures), Reform UK is circling.
The party, which smashed through the Red Wall in May, securing 677 council seats and snatching the parliamentary seat of Runcorn and Helsby in Cheshire from Labour by six votes, is polishing its offer to the wealth management sector, as well as the global community of footloose and fancy-free high rollers who have been giving up on the old country.
‘The exodus of talent and wealth from our shores is a disaster,’ Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage tells Hedgehog. ‘The Tories started it and Labour have compounded the error. Reform will address this issue. We will have a lot to say soon.’
Just ‘how’ soon, and quite what Farage has in mind, he declines to reveal for now, but it’s not hard to imagine the 5 Hertford Street and Oswald’s aficionado is attracted to President Trump’s eye-catching $5 million ‘gold card’ visa, designed to attract wealthy individuals to settle in the US.
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[See also: A Labour olive branch to non-doms?]
Strife aquatic
‘Can I swim naked in my pool?’ is the question on the tips of the tongues of HNW clients who employ domestic staff, according to Sofia Syed, founding partner of Mayfair-based law firm Meum. ‘This is a real issue,’ she told the Spear’s 500 Live roundtable at the Savoy in May, especially when you have live-in staff. So what’s the answer?
‘Striking this balance between privacy rights and employee protections isn’t just prudent – it’s vital to minimise legal and reputational risks,’ cautions Syed, whose advice is for house managers and executive assistants to approach such issues ‘proactively rather than reactively’.
‘Reactive advice is very expensive,’ she adds. For now, I’d opt to keep the trunks on.
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[See also: Is the superyacht industry sailing too close to the wind?]
Citizenship test
Donald Trump’s idiosyncratic foreign policy is creating problems for US passport holders overseas, warns security expert Wesley Bull, CEO of family office security advisory firm Sentinel Resource Group.
‘Being a US passport holder has its own set of risks now,’ Bull told Hedgehog during a quiet moment at Spear’s 500 Live at the Savoy. ‘I think we’re going to see more hostage-for-diplomacy, kidnap-ransom scenarios happening. The risk that comes of being a US citizen moving around the globe now has a completely different patina than it did a year ago.’
[See also: How citizenship is becoming a luxury asset]
All change at Rathbones
There’s change afoot at Rathbones, one of London’s largest and most venerable wealth managers. Hot on the heels of integrating the Investec Wealth and Investment business it acquired in 2023, the FTSE-250 wealth manager saw its funds under management and advice dip by £5 billion to £104 billion in the first three months of the year due to ‘market volatility’. That can’t have been part of the plan.
So step forward Camilla Stowell, who only recently left Coutts, where she was a fixture leading the private and commercial clients’ division. Stowell has joined the 283-year-old Rathbones as CEO of wealth, overseeing financial planning and investment management.
On 1 July, the firm also gets a new group CEO – Jonathan Sorrell, hired from New York-headquartered hedge fund Capstone Investment Advisors, which specialises in trading volatility, among other things. Sorrell, who replaces the retiring CEO Paul Stockton, has a CV that includes time at Man Group and Goldmans, and boasts illustrious parentage – his dad is advertising rainmaker Sir Martin Sorrell.
Hedgehog understands that high up on Stowell and Sorrell’s to-do list will be cutting costs and centralising the dealing system, to put the brand at the heart of the client relationships.
‘It’s the age-old story,’ whispers one industry insider. ‘You’ve got a whole bunch of old-timer, investment-focused fiftysomethings who have always prided themselves on picking their stocks for their clients. They’ve probably got great relationships with clients, but that’s quite an old-hat way of doing things, particularly if you want to keep costs down and deliver decent returns consistently. So that’s the big challenge – to bring Rathbones a little bit into the 21st century, in terms of who owns the clients.’
It won’t be easy to ‘industrialise’ the firm, as another wealth veteran tells Hedgehog: ‘The problem is you can’t sack all the old guys who are on the old payment metrics because – guess what – it’s really hard to replace them.’
[See also: HMRC nets £1.5 billion from wealthy in bumper year]
Into Milan
How many hotels do you need in Milan? The answer, if you’re Sir Rocco Forte at least, is two.
Already the veteran hotelier owns the Rocco Forte House, which offers lavishly serviced apartments in a renovated palazzo on the corner of Via Manzoni and the premier shopping street, Via della Spiga. But now he’s adding a new Milanese site to his 15-strong global hotel empire: the Carlton, which opens later this year.
‘Milan is a vibrant, dynamic and very exciting city,’ purrs Sir Rocco when Hedgehog catches his ear. ‘It has always been known as the capital of fashion and design, but in the last few years the city has become a truly cosmopolitan and creative hub for Europe. I am very much looking forward to opening the Carlton; it will be a perfect addition to the Rocco Forte House we launched last year.’
Sumptuously appointed by Forte’s sister, the group’s design guru Olga Polizzi, as well as interiors royalty Paolo Moschino and Philip Vergeylen, the latest outpost in the family hotel empire opens in good time to welcome guests for the 2026 Winter Olympics, which Milan is co-hosting.
[See also: ‘The island was a love story’: Richard Branson on his private Caribbean retreat, Necker]
Get Ottawa here!
Congratulations to Goldman Sachs, again. Already boasting from its ranks of alumni two Italian prime ministers (Mario Monti and Romano Prodi) plus one British PM (Rishi Sunak) and one from down under (Australia’s Malcolm Turnbull), Goldmans can now tick off another G7 premiership, Canada’s, thanks to the election of ex-central banker Mark Carney.
As the psephologists don’t say, but should: never bet against the squid.
This article first appeared in Spear’s Magazine Issue 96. Click here to subscribe
