Any client entertaining from your wealth manager (£1.4m invested)

[Mumoflovelyboys2]

Hi, I have £1.4m funds invested with a wealth manager that has been taken over and over the last few years the perks have all but disappeared.

I used to get invited to a nice lunch (somewhere of my choosing in central London) to discuss my funds plus other invites such as Christmas afternoon tea, clay pigeon shooting and talks with celebrities plus drinks etc.

All has gone completely and now only get a teams meeting annually - not even allowed into the office for a coffee - I think we’re now below the limit for them to bother. Just wondering if there are any other wealth managers that still perform well but do offer in person meetings and the odd jolly or two?

Hmm I’m in two minds about this. DH has more than you invested with a different wealth manager and has never been invited to anything, we’ve never even met our wealth manager in person. Everything is done via Teams. I have considerably less invested with another wealth manager and neither receive, nor expect, anything more than the opportunity of a six monthly review. Previously I worked for a high net worth couple (their business rather than for them personally but there was a lot of crossover) and to my knowledge they never received invites to anything despite having many millions invested with one company.

Whilst I can see that the personal touch is nice, our main criteria in deciding on where to invest relates to things like fund growth, stability, knowledge of markets etc and social events doesn’t come anywhere on the list. You’re obviously already aware that you are effectively paying for your own lunch and clay pigeon shooting day. It’s an increasingly outmoded way of doing business, from a time when people didn’t work remotely so your wealth manager was in the office five days a week (and had to live in the vicinity of the office rather than hours away) and always available for lunches, also the technology didn’t exist to inform people and communicate with investors about their money so In-person events were far more necessary. Whilst lunch is nice, I’m not naive enough to think that it has anything to do with my investments and everything to do with making me feel loved and important. If I’m going to talk about what I wish to do with my funds over the coming year, I’d much rather do it remotely with an excel spreadsheet in front of me on my own computer.

If you feel that your investments are not growing as they should then by all means investigate another manager but in 2026 I don’t think that the personal touch which you enjoy will be available or can be part of the decision-making.

I have similar invested and our WM also manages my parents, much larger portfolio, and other family members. We usually do teams calls. We have met and had a coffee a couple of times but it never occurred to me to expect more. I imagine my investments are pretty small fry compared to a lot of the other clients. He’s lovely but l not sure I want to go out and make small talk with him

Sorry to piggy back but I’d love to hear views on whether a WM would be useful in our situation. Currently have £1.6m invested in total (inc pensions) and will be investing another £1.4m over the next 4 years so about £3m in total as a couple (that’s not including any investment growth or loss between now and then).

We’ve always managed our own investments which has been very easy given the fact that anyone with a global tracker has made double digit returns recently. However I’m mindful of the fact that this market won’t last forever and our financial situation will also change as we’re thinking about semi retirement in about 5 years. We also need to think about IHT planning.

Grateful for any views.

We do have more invested, so perhaps you’re right that it’s the smaller amount. I’m going to ask one of my friends who has a similar amount invested to you and see if they’re still getting taken out. Will report back

Nail on the head. You'd be better with a wealth manager who charges less so you have more money to treat yourself (or more kept in your investments).

They’re definitely not a necessity but they do make things a little bit easier. You can have a no obligation chat with a WM and they can explain what they can do for you, so I would absolutely start there. Since it’ll be going up to 3m I think it’ll be well worth it, especially if you’re planning on retiring soon! X

Is it because you are under 1.5 maybe? If you can get to 1.5 and go with the pb arm of a High St bank (eg hsbc) you will automatically be in a concierge service which offers invites and events as you describe.

You will still be paying for it though, but with the restriction that they can only sell their own products, which may or may not be suitable. An IFA can search the whole market before making a recommendation.

I was specifically replying to the OP's actual query about client entertaining and another way to access the jollys (eg you could choose a private bank with a concierge service).

Great thanks, would be useful to know. It's not just being taken out I definitely get a feeling of being given the minimal service due to being a small (to them) client investor.

My DH and I get invited to a couple of lunches per year.

Ours does, but we have only accepted once (DH works nutso hours and I just can’t be arsed).

I’d say on average it’s an invitation to a summer lunch on the roof (this is Coutts btw), a Christmas thing, we get sent a bottle of whatever maybe annually (or twice a year if there’s been a significant personal event) and a lunch just with our banker.

I think our dude got bored of asking us tbh. Like, why would we go for a coffee across town when an email or Zoom does the job for us?

Ah no. You see you’re thinking of Mainwaring of the National Provincial Bank and Furniss of the Westminster Bank. They were both let go when the National Westminster Bank was formed.

We have had two lovely dinner invites plus a canapés and wine event at a London attraction in the two years we have been with our wealth management company.

Our bank has taken us to a wine tasting and a luxury meal - private banking

Ha ha, I say yes to everything. It's brilliant. Why wouldn't you? I've done some lovely things. I have no shame. I'll go to the opening of an envelope if there's fizz on offer. Someone's got to drink it. Plus there's usually a student young person happy to tag along for a freebie.

Because I’d rather just buy my own drink or dinner or day out and have it when and where I like and with who I like.

You would be correct. My friend has 1.6 invested and she doesn’t get invited anywhere. It’s not great from them to be honest, so I’m a bit put off now

DH used to work with a large UK bank’s WM division (IT support services, he isn’t a WM). The move is very much away from the personalised touch and trying to shunt you towards doing everything online via a call centre, automating the investments, using AI etc. No more named account managers, no F2F meetings, definitely no freebies.

They know very well that their clients don’t like it (DH did some of the user research) but they don’t care because they don’t think people will leave, and it saves them so much money. These were people with a net worth of up to £10m, so at £1.4m they really really won’t care if you are unhappy I’m afraid!

We have similar investments to you and this put us in a category with Evelyn that means we have a tailored investment manager who tracks our stuff specifically and maximises CGT. Our returns have been much better since we moved into that bracket.

As someone who has worked in the industry for many years, I can confirm that to any of the larger wealth managers, £1.5m does not make you a significant client. In fact £1m is the minimum threshold for most discretionary fund managers - anything beneath that level is funnelled into a managed portfolio solution.

Even the longest-standing wealth management firms are being strongly encouraged by shareholders or private equity owners to cut costs to an absolute minimum, so free lunches are not easy to come by.

Many wealth managers will have 100+ clients so there simply isn’t time to take everyone out for lunch.

That’s very interesting. Don’t they worry that if they are wanting to use call centres and AI, clients are going to figure they can do that for themselves and leave? Isn’t some of the service in the psychological realm, making people feel valued/ looked after , and if that goes then some might DIY it? Just use an accountant?

Assuming that you pay 1% assets under management (AUM) fees, you are paying 14,000 per year for them to manage your money. What could you do with that money if you invested in low cost ETFs directly without them? That's one hell of a party you could throw for yourselves.

Just don't invite your ex WMs!

I agree it's pretty shabby; I hope all their too-trivial-to-bother clients do, indeed, bugger off to do their own automated investing. They could start a mutual support club, in which everyone contributes a grand or two for a few pleasant 'business' socials each year. The expense will, of course, be tax deductible 🙂

You all obviously know what you’re doing and know how to get the most out of your money, could I ask a personal question?

Do you use your salaries to build this level of investment or is some of it from inheritance etc?

Do you have high paying salaries?

Im just trying to get my head around investing but I don’t earn a lot of money, so will never be near this level of funds, but would like to make the little I do have work for me.

thanks!