José Luis Llamas is yet another example of those professionals who opt for leaving large companies to launch independent projects. After 25 years of private banking experience and 13 years at Deutsche Bank, this Mexican professional has created Verax Wealth Management, a Multi-Family Office oriented to UHNW clients in Latin America, which aims to become the largest Family Office in the country. “We are not the largest in Mexico, but we are close. We hope to be so in the short term, as we have started with already a significant amount of assets.”
To this end, he has left New York to return to his roots in Mexico City, where the company will have its headquarters. “Although our headquarters will be in Mexico, our goal is to open another office in the US, probably in Miami or Houston.”
With this new project, Llamas aims to offer his services to a small number of high income households (over $25 million), with a focus on “pure family office”, covering their financial and non-financial needs, estate planning, and tax advice. “The idea of a family office is to cover all the needs of the family. I do not believe in the model which focuses exclusively on the financial side, ignoring family planning and the fiscal situation. Our big advantage is to be able to purely represent the client’s interests and to avoid conflicts of interest. We don’t need to make a decision because we represent a certain institution. This allows us to offer many more options to our customers, in a market that is becoming increasingly complex.”
As regards portfolio management, they will use an open architecture approach that aligns with the interests of the families they represent. “We will provide tailor-made solutions for each of our customers,” said the expert. “The fact of starting from scratch with a large volume of assets allows me to have a greatly talented team of investment professionals. We are about to close the recruitment of Chief Investment Officer and two other portfolio managers. “The objective of the company is to initially have a team consisting of eight or nine people, three of which will be bankers.
In late November, Verax will launch its first open fund, with medium risk, which will invest in liquid share certificates, fixed income and commodities. “With this fund we want to give access to smaller customers who have requested our services.”
On the other hand, the expert says that they are investing in less traditional assets, both in private equity and real estate, “Smaller products that are difficult to access and in which we are having the good fortune of participating.”
“We will have many short term corporate surprises, both by the corporate deals in which we are involved, and for the important recruitments we are making,” he concludes.