Focus Financial Partners today announced it is co-launching an international, multi-family office and wealth management firm in partnership with one of the richest families in the world.
Started by four private wealth advisors to a number of ultra-high net worth families, Beryllus Capital will be based in London with offices in Geneva and Singapore. The firm will help wealthy families around the world manage their money, assets and legacies, backed by Focus Financial Partner’s network of services and infrastructure.
Beryllus is a joint venture between Focus Financial and the Hinduja family, who own and run a $50 billion (revenue) international conglomerate with dozens of companies across financial services, trading, oil and automobiles. The family, headed by the four sons of founder Parmanand Deepchand Hinduja, has a net worth of $14.6 billion, according to the most recent Forbes Magazine valuation.
“We are partnering with great optimism on Beryllus Capital with Focus Financial Partners," said Gopichand “G.P.” Hinduja, co-chairman of the Hinduja Group, in a statement. "This is an important strategic alliance. Beryllus Capital will address the bespoke needs of ultra-high net worth families on a global scale, with outstanding professional and governance standards.”
Beryllus Capital’s co-founder and managing partner Amit Kotha was most recently a private wealth advisor and managing director with RBC Wealth Management in the U.K. He brings an existing relationship with the Hinduja family to launch the firm and sought out Focus Financial as a partner. “He is the glue that puts this together,” Rajini Kodialam, Focus Financial Partners co-founder and chief operating officer, said in an interview with Wealthmanagement.com.
She said Kotha shared Focus’ belief that wealth management services for the rich, often embedded in banks and larger financial services firms, would be better if moved from a “conflicted environment to an open-architecture environment,” without a partner pushing a “proprietary product or technology play.”
"Our strength lies in the long-standing connections that our founding partners have with some of the most influential families in the world,” Kotha said in a statement. “With the backing of clients with whom I have worked with for many years, as well as Focus Financial Partners, a leader in independent wealth management, I am confident that Beryllus Capital will establish a new standard for multi-family offices worldwide.”
Beryllus extends Focus Financial’s “strategic shift” toward ultra-high-net-worth and international markets, Kodialam said.
In 2019, Focus acquired multi-family office Prime Quadrant in Toronto and ultra-high-net-worth-family focused Escala Partners in Australia.
Focus Financial’s partner firm Connectus recently acquired three wealth management firms in Australia—Brady & Associates, Link and Westwood—providing services to ultra-high-net-worth clients.
In the U.S., Focus recently added Kansas City-based Prarie Capital Management and Providence, Rhode Island-based Matheys Lane Capital Management, both focused on ultra-high-net-worth clients.
Kodialam said Beryllus will offer the full range of family office services, like cash management, private investments, taxes, trust and estate planning, sourced either from third-parties or, increasingly, from other Focus Financial Partner firms. In turn, lessons learned catering to the richest of the rich will translate back to other Focus Financial firms.
“We will learn from the needs of the client families and bring those services to other partners serving other clients,” she said.