With a new presence in Monaco last October, and building on progress since being formed in the midst of the 2008 financial crash, Plurimi has pushed forward. Its chairman and former CEO recently spoke to this publication.

Plurimi, an independent wealth advisory firm formed by ex-bankers in the shadow of the 2008 financial crisis has gradually grown, expanding in Monaco last year and filling a need for clients who want a wider view than available from banks. 

Ramzy Rasamny – executive chairman of Plurimi since December 2019 and group CEO from the time of the firm’s founding in 2008, who relinquished the post in January this year – spoke to this news service about where the business is heading. Fahad Khan is now group CEO.

In October last year it opened a Monaco office and was granted regulatory clearance from the Commission for the Control of Financial Activities. Some bankers have moved to the Principality from London. Oxana Belousova is CEO for the Monaco business, Heba Mongi is senior partner, and Gregory Thompson is chief operating officer. Plurimi is in the process of hiring another person.

“There aren’t a lot of wealth management firms that are well established, and of our size in Monaco,” Rasamny told this news service. 

The Plurimi organisation in Monaco uses the same platform as that employed in Dubai and London. (There are 10 people based at the business in Dubai.) In July 2020 it made a number of hires, as reported here.

“Monaco is a natural market for us. Many UHNW families either reside or spend a lot of time in Monaco – not a lot of competition for a firm of our size. Our platform is super scalable so we just take it wherever we see an opportunity,” he continued. 

There’s quite a buzz in Monaco. This year, Barclays is marking its 100th anniversary of doing business there; in 2021, Pictet opened a booking centre in the tiny city-state; and former Julius Baer banker Ali Jamal founded Azura, a wealth management boutique based in Monaco. This news service interviewed one of the big local players – CMB – about its strategy and how this jurisdiction, sitting on the Mediterranean coast next to France and Italy, fits into the wider wealth picture. 

With Rasamny's perspective of a banking background, he understands where it makes most sense to have booking centres. Before Plurimi, he was a managing director at Credit Suisse for almost seven years. His colleague, Khan, worked at the wealth management business of Morgan Stanley before joining Plurimi.

The firm in total has about $6 billion in client assets and employs a total of about 70 people, Rasamny said. As far as growth is concerned, it is not greatly interested in mergers and acquisitions: “Our main aim is to grow organically.”

Ecosystem
The firm is also upgrading its technology systems and making it easier for clients to have consolidated reporting across all their holdings, those using multiple banks, for example, as is often the case with ultra-wealthy clients, Khan told this publication in the same interview. 

The firm operates with more than 20 custodians around the world. “We keep improving the Plurimi ecosystem,” he said. 

A “large majority” of clients need help in pulling multiple relationships together," he said, explaining that ultra-wealthy clients often have a range of banks and other institutions they deal with, consequently needing an advisor to create some structure. “We save a lot of time and use tools to analyse portfolios,” he said. 

“We can look at clients’ portfolios and notice they will cover similar holdings across different banks….often in highly concentrated ways and not diversified…and we can sort that and tidy that up,” Kahn said.

“Banks are great partners but no bank can cover everything. With our open architecture model we can work with many institutions. In this world, banks are quite bureaucratic and inflexible….people will need several institutions at their disposal to be your partner.”

UK
The firm has developed a capability for UK-domiciled and resident families, and this business now accounts for about a quarter of Plurimi’s total. The firm has hired from banks such as Coutts and Barclays to do this, Rasamny said. “We are booking business in the UK.”

“The ultra-high net worth segment…..I don’t think banks are capable of serving all these clients well. Clients want to see the whole market….they often don’t take no for an answer,” he continued. 

Dubai
“We think Dubai has become like any other major city, a melting pot of different nationalities. It provides many families and businesspeople with a super-efficient way to do business and to live, which means it will attract wealthy families from around the world,” Rasamny said. 

WealthBriefing asked whether problems arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine affected any of Plurimi’s clients. “None of our clients have been affected,” he replied.

And technology is a key part of the offering, he concluded. “we have our own AI system, which our CIO, Patrick Armstrong and his team use as a guide to their investment management. Of course, the team don’t follow it blindly but simply use it as a guide as it analyses over 6,000 data points for each security. In terms of consolidated reporting, we use Expersoft, a Swiss company specialising in licensing its software to allow us to receive and consolidate client data from our various custodians, which we are then able to present to clients as a clear overview of their entire holdings at different banks. It also serves as valuable management information tool.”