One of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organizations is opening its first office on the U.S. west coast. deVere Group’s base in San Francisco is an integral part of the company’s ambitious expansion plans for the North American market. The San Francisco operation, which is located in the city’s prestigious Market Street, will be headed by Adrian Flambard.
The organization, which has 70 offices globally, more than 80,000 clients and $10bn under advice, launched its U.S. hub office in New York in June 2012. It also has a presence in Miami’s Brickell financial district.
Nigel Green, the deVere Group founder and CEO, comments: “We’re delighted to announce the opening of the San Francisco office, which is an integral part of deVere Group’s strategic push further into the North American market.
“We are committed to developing our already established presence in the U.S. and expanding into Canada over the next two years in order to meet the ongoing demand for our financial services from U.S. and Canadian citizens, international investors and expatriates.
“This soaring demand is being fuelled by a growing financial awareness and savviness in America since 2008 – people know more than ever that they need professional advice to maximise and safeguard their wealth – and because an ‘advice gap’ has been created in recent years due to many advisory firms exiting the market. We believe that our American offices have the potential to be the organisation’s most successful. He adds: “What happens in the U.S. marketplace is often a good indicator of where the wider financial services industry is headed in terms of trends, regulation and business practices. As such, we will continue to carefully analyse our expansion process here to see how our business models in other markets in which we operate might evolve.”
Senior Area Manager of deVere USA Inc, Benjamin Alderson, says: “deVere USA, which is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, already has a significant number of San Francisco-based clients, and due to its major financial hub status, and its high population of high net worth U.S citizens, globally-minded investors and expatriates, San Francisco was a natural choice for the next stage of our North American growth strategy.
The team
The San Francisco operation, which is located in the city’s prestigious Market Street, will be headed by Adrian Flambard, who has relocated from deVere Group’s New York City office.
Mr Flambard, who started his career as a chartered tax advisor with PriceWaterhouseCoopers and is a well-known, experienced advisor in the international advisory sector, says: “This is a fantastic opportunity to be further involved with a robust global expansion within a dynamic, sophisticated market in which there is an obvious need for our services. These are exciting times for deVere Group.
“We are looking to extend the enviable reputation that deVere has in other regions of the world for delivering a world-class, results-driven service to its clients. We’re looking forward to becoming the San Francisco area’s most trusted advisors of specialist global financial solutions to international, local mass affluent, and high-net-worth clients.”
There is currently a team of five in the San Francisco office with the number of advisors expected to reach 15 within six months.