Highlighting brands across different segments and a deeper service offering for HNW clients, David Agnew outlines what he believes is RBC Wealth Management’s Canadian growth path
RBC Wealth Management’s ongoing push into the United States does not mean it’s losing sight of the Canadian market, says David Agnew, CEO of RBC Wealth Management Canada. Despite a historic push into the advisory space south of the border, which includes plans to hire 600 US advisors according to The Globe and Mail, the firm’s Canadian arm sees continued room for growth in its home country.
Agnew explained that the Canadian wealth market has a number of growth avenues, first and foremost being the high net worth (HNW) and ultra high net worth (UHNW) segments. He expects that market to grow from around $2.7 trillion in assets today to around $5.2 trillion in the next seven to eight years, largely as a result of business liquidations and inheritance. He says that his firm’s expansion into the United States should serve to complement, rather than detract from, a very specific growth plan in Canada.
“That expansion is going to benefit our Canadian business as well in terms of increasing spending on technology. We'll spend once and use it in more than one area. Our portfolio advisory group has expertise in the U.S. that can benefit our Canadian businesses and vice versa,” Agnew says. “[The expansion] is not pulling or detracting from our Canadian business, in fact it’s going to be additive in terms of helping to grow our business and the shared services we can deliver.”
Agnew sees significant growth upside for RBC Wealth Management in Canada in part due to the strength of its brand. Stressing the preference that HNW clients have shown for large, stable, institutions he says that a national brand like RBC can help support advisors across their various sub-brands in different channels.
Those channels include the traditional wealth management and brokerage business largely housed under the RBC Dominion Securities brand. It also includes the investment counselling space through PH&N Investment Counsel, Family Office Services support both businesses with holistic wealth planning, as well as insurance, estate, and trust businesses which Agnew believes can play a role in supporting growth for the firm overall.
Agnew is explicit in targeting the HNW and UHNW client segments. He believes that these clients want more than just investment management. Because liquidity events and inheritances look set to drive a huge per centage of the $2.5 trillion Agnew sees flowing into this space, he emphasizes the importance of planning. That planning should encompass areas like philanthropy, legacy, estate planning, and even health and wellness. He wants RBC advisors to be able to have a full and robust answer when clients ask them if they are going to be okay.
Providing that level of planning takes investment. Agnew explains that RBC has long insisted on a planning forward approach and supplemented that with ongoing training, workshops, and continuing education. They have added a training group and continue to build out their practice management and branch management teams, who exist to serve, train, and coach advisors. Agnew believes this has been enmeshed in the culture, noting that when he says he’s proud that 85 per cent of their clients have a financial plan, his colleagues come back and tell him that number should be 100 per cent.
RBC is far from the only wealth management shop in Canada to offer planning services. A growing cohort of independent investment advisory firms have built their place in the market by specializing in planning and service for HNW and UHNW clients. When asked how he plans to differentiate himself from those firms, Agnew focused on the size and scale offered by RBC. He insists that the kind of investment required for technological progress advantages firms with scale. He argues that the complex cross-border lives of Canadian HNW and UHNW clients preferences firms with major presences in the US and Canada. He says that his firm’s size makes it better suited for higher net worth clients in Canada, a cohort where he says there is still room for his firm to grow.
“We are fully, fully committed to Canada. In fact, we're increasing our investment in our Canadian businesses in technology, portfolio management,” Agnew says. “We're expanding offices. We're taking on new office space today. We're growing our training group. We're growing our portfolio advisory group. We're growing in every area, advisor support. We're growing in our marketing area, our communications area. We are gearing up for a very, very important growth opportunity in the Canadian market.”
