UHNW advice shops offer tailored solutions for well-heeled families, ranging all the way from hard-to-access investment funds and tax structuring to more esoteric subjects such as negotiating divorce settlements or financing a yacht.

It has been a red-hot area for dealmaking in recent years. That’s because UHNW advice businesses – given they are dealing with sophisticated clients – can charge them hefty commissions, which ASIC banned in retail financial advice more than a decade ago when it introduced Future of Finance Advice Reforms.

Show me the money

Last year, CBA’s rival National Australia Bank struck a deal to put together JBWere’s Kiwi business with investment bank Jarden’s wealth business in the country. The combined entity’s ownership was split as 45 per cent with NAB, 20 per cent with Jarden and 35 per cent with Pacific Equity Partners. (NAB, itself, acquired JBWere from Goldman Sachs.)

Melbourne’s Escala is backed by Nasdaq-listed Focus Financial Partners. Also in the sector are Koda Partners and Pitcher Partners. Among investment banks, Morgan Stanley has a built a successful UHNW advice business over the years, while UBS was forced back into the sector via its forced marriage with Credit Suisse, whose Australian business is quipped as having written “half the Point Piper mortgages” in advice circles.

At CBA, financial advice was a reliable cash cow for decades until the royal commission blew the lid on fee-for-no-service scandals, especially in its Financial Wisdom, CFP Pathways and Count Financial brands. It sold Count and shut the other two, but still had a $40 million provision for remediation at yesterday’s results. In the 2023 financial year, it paid $262 million for remediation to former financial advice clients.