Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Wealth managers are increasingly helping their clients evacuate the Middle East since the beginning of the Iran conflict as part of a widening suite of services to rich investors.
Cresset, which has over $237bn in assets under management and advisement, is one of the investment firms to have extracted clients from the United Arab Emirates in the weeks since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran.
“These situations impact us in multiple ways,” said Susie Cranston, chief executive at US-based Cresset, which provides wealth management and financial planning services to rich families.
“It’s not just the investment side. We’ve actually had to help clients get out of locations that were challenging to get out of.”
The removal of clients from conflict zones highlights how some wealth advisers and multi-family offices — which handle the finances of multiple dynasties — have extended their services well beyond investment and taxes to lifestyle management, security, travel and logistical arrangements.
As the wealth industry consolidates and faces competition from financial technology firms, family offices and asset managers are turning to specialist concierge functions to maintain their edge and justify high fees.
“We get our clients preferred access to a number of different security partners,” said Cranston, “and we also have specialised firms that assist in very unique one-off situations, including an ex-CIA operator.”
A report this month from research firm Cerulli Associates found that almost a third of advisers to high-net-worth clients now offer concierge and lifestyle services, with that figure leaping to 58 per cent for those serving the “ultra” wealthy.
Cresset worked with a partner to secure seats on a private plane out of Dubai, which was permitted to depart even while UAE airspace was closed early in the conflict. It then found coveted spots on the first commercial flight out after the clients opted to fly later.
Alpen Partners, a Swiss-based independent wealth manager overseeing $4.5bn, said it had helped roughly 30 clients including some family members leave places such as Dubai and Israel. About 80 per cent of those were European clients from countries including Switzerland, France and Italy and the remainder were local clients in the Middle East who wanted to leave.
The wealth manager has helped secure flights on private jets and commercial airlines flying out of the Middle East, said Pierre Gabris, Alpen’s founder and managing partner.
“It has gotten harder now that private jets are no longer flying out of Oman but it is still possible,” Gabris said.
Many clients do not intend to return, he added.
“I spoke to a client today and he said he would be waiting a minimum of two years to go back.”
Alpen has also helped clients get residence in Switzerland for their families and find places to live, and even assisted with schools.
Another Zurich-based director for a Swiss boutique wealth manager said they had helped a high-net-worth client get his family out of Dubai via a private jet, and assist with residence permits for Switzerland. “Most of their money was already in Europe anyway,” they said.
Investment firms’ commitment to securing safe passage for their clients has brought more business to international travel and logistics companies.
One security and emergency response firm, Global Guardian, said it had helped over 4,200 people leave the Middle East since the strikes on Iran, with roughly two-fifths of those extractions done on behalf of family offices and wealth managers, along with some direct work for rich families, film and sports stars.
“We’ve evacuated a series of very high net worth people that have homes [or] vacation in the UAE,” said chief executive Dale Buckner, noting that “Dubai was the hotspot”.
Buckner added that “on the higher end”, the firm had organised for clients to be driven across the border to Muscat, Oman, before transporting them via private jet to Europe.
Family offices and high net worth clients are “looking for a concierge”, he said, “one button where they have one phone number, one email and all of these services can be at their beck and call”.
Prior to the most recent conflict, Cresset had helped clients with travel and security arrangements during other emergencies, including at the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the October 7 attacks in Israel in 2023.
Cranston said that her company had received client phone calls from hotels in Israel while explosions were happening nearby. The group worked with security partners to arrange an armed escort and transportation out of the country, before coordinating a private charter to repatriate them.
“I think security is going to become a really, really important aspect of what clients need help with,” she said.
Additional reporting by Josh Spero and Emma Dunkley in London, and Amelia Pollard in New York
