Choose Wisely

When it comes to investing your hard-earned money, you want an investment company with a solid reputation, an innovative and flexible approach, and most importantly, strategic and skilful insight to ensure your life savings are preserved during a crisis or economic downturn.

Selecting who to trust with your money is an important and weighty decision; you are entering into a lifelong partnership that can either improve your lifestyle or cause it to deteriorate, so choose wisely. Here are some important factors to consider when making your decision.

Strong client relationships and quality of service 

A large part of Citadel’s success is based on building long-term partnerships with clients. Our business is all about relationships. We focus on making our clients feel heard and understood through every stage of their lives. In so doing, we provide peace of mind that their investments, estates and other facets of their financial lives are being taken care of in one place.

We take it very seriously if a client complains. Our quality of service and value proposition is everything – we’re big enough to service all the wealth management needs of our clients, but still small enough to have close relationships with clients.

Company culture of accountability and support

A culture of accountability, ownership and support within a company is important. When I was appointed as CEO, I wanted to retain line function on certain initiatives as this would give me sight of the everyday operations to equip me to answer any questions. I work closely together with an exceptional team; we are accountable to one another to give our best, we support and help one another. We have a culture of accountability and self-ownership and our communication is more tailored and holistic, which greatly benefits our clients.

Innovation and strategic management 

While strategic management and innovation should be at the heart of any investment company’s operation, it becomes crucial for business survival during times of volatility and crisis. A wealth management company that cannot pivot and adapt to a changing environment cannot serve its clients’ best interests.

When I stepped into the CEO role at Citadel in 2013, the world was still recovering from the 2008 global financial crisis, and financial services companies had to demonstrate operational resilience. The crisis ushered in an era of heightened regulations regarding pricing and commoditisation of products in the wealth management industry.

Clearly, innovative new approaches were required to not only retain clients, but also attract new business. We focused on offering the best value by providing premium quality service to build lifelong relationships with our clients. This approach paid off and cemented the company’s 99 per cent year-on-year client retention rate.

In the same decade, many other world and national events took place, causing great concern to several CEOs, while others viewed it as an opportunity to show the value of sound investment advice. Volatility can be unsettling if one doesn’t have it factored into your investment strategy. We are an advice-led business; and our clients rely on that advice in times of crisis. Our asset management team is very focused on scenario planning and strategy so that we can identify investment opportunities in various market cycles.

Citadel’s business model has always been about building long-term partnerships with clients, so when the COVID-19 pandemic forced companies to rethink how they do things, I was initially unsure if online interactions would work. However, both clients and employees embraced the change, and client relationships appear stronger than ever.

Forward-looking and in touch 

A wealth management company should always ensure that it is in touch with the needs of a changing market and world, and adjust its offerings and service delivery accordingly. After all, the nature of an investment company’s business is about preserving and creating wealth for the future, so it stands to reason that it should “walk the talk” by future-proofing its own business.

There is a big transfer of wealth taking place in the world right now; we are responding to that by being cognisant of younger clients’ environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns and value systems.

Over the next few years, issues of industry regulation and client expectations around responsible investing and climate risk will become critical. While many investment clients are high-net-worth retirees, it is their children who will become the new generation of clients. And this generation cares deeply about the health of the planet, as well as more personalised yet streamlined services, so a good wealth management company will respond with innovative ways to deliver on these needs.

Citadel, for example, is now focusing on creating digital touchpoints for clients by providing software and other technological tools that younger clients like to use to manage their portfolios.

Doing it differently, but well

A wealth management company that focuses on and invests in its core differentiators will ensure its longevity. There are businesses out there that say that they do what we do. They do, but importantly, unlike us, it is not all that they do – this is what I believe sets us apart. One of our strategies very simply is to spend more on digital. The work-from-home strategy eroded a significant portion of our cost base, and we have not taken that and just declared dividends – we have reinvested it in the business to accelerate certain programmes that make it easier to onboard clients, that make it easier for clients to give us instructions, and for us to create self-help modules and cybersecurity vaults for clients.

For more information visit citadel.co.za.