Diagonal Funding Workplace launched in Miami this month with $200 million in consumer property and a mission to supply household workplace providers to ultra-high-net-worth Latin American purchasers.
The agency was created with help from Sanctuary World, Sanctuary Wealth’s worldwide platform, and is led by trade veterans Santiago Rey and Rodolfo “Rudy” Rake. It’s the tenth agency to affix Sanctuary World because it launched in Could 2021 with a deal with Latin American markets and recruited Rake to function managing director and head of center markets.
Previous to his profession in monetary providers, Rake performed skilled tennis. As a teen within the Nineties, he ranked No. 1 within the U.S. twice, beating out different younger gamers comparable to Roger Federer and James Blake. He retired in 2001 and went on to graduate summa cum laude from Florida Atlantic College in Miami in 2004. Rake began at Smith Barney the following 12 months and shortly turned one of many youngest managing administrators within the agency’s historical past, with a deal with serving Latin American purchasers. He stated he left Morgan Stanley Smith Barney after greater than 16 years as a result of he turned annoyed with the tradition and constraints he encountered on the wirehouse.
Rey spent 4 years with Banco de Credito in Lima, Peru, earlier than becoming a member of JP Morgan in 2007, the place he headed up the New York and Geneva funding desks whereas incomes his grasp’s diploma in finance from Columbia Enterprise College. Previous to Diagonal, he was a companion in GAMNIC Household Workplace and founding father of Acorde Inversiones Familiares in Lima.
After becoming a member of Sanctuary, Rake known as up his previous good friend and proposed the new partnership. “With Diagonal,” he stated, “we’re taking a U.S. fee-based mannequin of fiduciary wealth administration that leads with monetary planning and adapting it to our Latin American purchasers.”
In lower than a 12 months of planning and preparation, Rake and Rey have put collectively a prelaunch consumer checklist with $200 million in property and are already receiving new referrals.
“We’re managing a number of households,” stated Rey. “Completely open structure the place we’re serving to them with their complete internet value at a pair totally different banks.” Now {that a} bilingual web site is up and working, he stated, “we see a whole lot of potential for progress.”
The flexibility to handle property custodied at a number of banks for a consumer is uncommon in Latin America, limiting funding decisions and making complete oversight troublesome, stated Rake and Rey, positioning Diagonal to supply a singular service in these communities. Along with a rising consumer base within the Miami space, the agency has purchasers in Peru, Mexico, Colombia and Chile.
“That market is closely transactional” stated Sanctuary President Robert Walter. “Rudy and Santiago are introducing them to a greater and extra environment friendly fee-based mannequin.“
Rey stated Diagonal provides a full spectrum of funding alternatives to assist purchasers curate portfolios greatest suited to their wants with out the boundaries imposed by extra conventional banking and custodial preparations.
“What we largely assist them to do is to choose the proper ones, to choose the fitting ones for them and keep away from these that aren’t cost-efficient or are underperforming, obscure, illiquid,” he stated. “And people are what’s largely been provided by the common banking trade.”
Each 43 years previous, Rake and Rey grew up collectively in Lima, the place they attended the identical center and excessive colleges. Years later, they each ended up working in finance in New York Metropolis—Rake at Morgan Stanley and Rey at JP Morgan—the place they developed an in depth friendship that continued after Rake moved to Miami and Rey returned to Lima to open a enterprise managing funds for institutional purchasers.
When the pandemic hit and the funds Rey managed in Peru dried up, he stated he was introduced with a brand new alternative as rich native households approached him for assist managing portfolios that had been impacted by the worldwide disaster.
“We began working collectively,” stated Rey. “Rudy on the execution desk in Morgan Stanley and I used to be giving recommendation regionally to those households.” When Rake made the transfer to Sanctuary, Rey determined to maneuver his accounts along with his good friend fairly than preserve them on the wirehouse. The 2 started planning to launch their very own apply on the platform, selecting the title Diagonal as a result of it describes probably the most environment friendly path between two unaligned factors and is spelled the identical in each Spanish and English.
Additionally becoming a member of the Diagonal workforce is Senior Portfolio Affiliate Gisselle Balza, who brings greater than 18 years of expertise to the place, together with virtually seven years as non-public wealth administration affiliate with Morgan Stanley in Miami.
“I feel the following 5 years are going to be large,” stated Rake. “There’s not a whole lot of household workplaces that may use the leverage of a $25 billion platform with all of the capabilities and sources that brings to the desk. I feel that is very potent when it comes to progress.
“We wish to be at $500 million inside the subsequent two or three years,” he stated, “and hopefully a billion inside the subsequent three to 5 years.”