Industry veteran Sarah Soar has navigated Hawksmoor through a period of radical change since stepping up to take the reins from founder and chief executive John Crowley in October 2019.
Following Crowley’s retirement early last year, the company has seen a changing of the guards, with three senior executives handing in their resignation, including chairman James Brent.
But the biggest change came when the company was scooped up by Hurst Point Group in January this year. Established by $276bn (£205bn) private equity house Carlyle Group to tap into the UK wealth management sector, Hurst Point has gobbled up fellow discretionary fund manager Harwood Wealth Management and five financial planners since launching in 2019.
Though Hawksmoor has secured backing from one of the biggest private equity houses in the world, Soar is adamant the company stays true to its roots.
“I’m very keen that we’re not just another City firm, which helps that we’re based in Exeter,” she says. “I really want it to be a firm that people aspire to join, whether as a member of staff or as a client, that is appealing and approachable and not seen as some sort of mysterious organisation that seems daunting and threatening.”
Hiring more female managers is a top priority
Soar’s 35-year career has been filled with glass-ceiling shattering milestones. She was the first woman to be appointed to Brewin Dolphin’s board in its then 250- year history. From there, she went to head up JM Finn’s investment management proposition in 2014 for five years before becoming Hawksmoor’s top boss.
At Hawksmoor she is keen to hire more female talent for the investment team. Male employees outnumber females two to one at the firm. The 26-strong investment team has four women in it, while the fund research division has one and two are on the fund management side.
Soar believes too many women are still stumbling into investment management as a career path “by accident”, as she did. “My mission is to get investment management much more on the radar as a really good career for women,” Soar explains.
“If you think that half the private client investors are women, it makes sense that half the investment managers are women. We are a long way off that statistic at the moment, but it’s getting better.”
Hawksmoor targeting £5bn assets by 2025
Like most wealth managers, 2020 was a rough year for Hawksmoor. Funds under management (FUM) slumped 4.6% to £1.4bn by December, with profits for the year also taking a slight hit of 2%, to £1.4m. But eight months later, FUM had already bounced back to £1.5bn, ahead of Soar’s year-end target. By 2025 she hopes to at least triple total assets to £5bn.
Luckily, Soar made a point of sitting down with each and every one of Hawksmoor’s employees before the pandemic struck.
“This business is all about relationships, whether it’s relationships among the staff or those we have with our clients, but that is the number one priority. And that really helped in terms of being able to manage the organisation through Covid, as we all suddenly dispersed to different parts of the country.”
Soar wants to continue to grow funds organically but also by recruiting new talent. It’s a strategy that has served Hawksmoor in good stead so far. Outside its Exeter headquarters, the wealth manager has set up offices in five other locations, including London, Taunton and Dorchester.
In June it opened the doors to a brand-new Bath office, installing seven new recruits, including former Investec duo Ian Bailey and Rob Robson and ex-professional cricketer Dean Hodgson.
M&A deals a possibility
Going down the M&A route is a possibility, too, says Soar. The right target company would need to serve a similar customer base of private clients and clients of professional advisers, such as trusts, pension schemes and charities. But, more importantly, the company in question must have a similar ethos and “put the client absolutely at the centre of what they do”.
While Soar has ambitions to scale the business up, she says there are benefits to being smaller, such as accessing parts of the market that a larger firm might not be able to. “It’s that nimbleness which I think makes us a little bit more versatile than a number of competitors.”
Hawksmoor’s discretionary arm is still the largest part of the company. In addition to bespoke options, the wealth business has three model portfolio ranges for advisers – Core, Higher Income and Sustainable World – across four risk categories. It also has a separate funds operation, headed up by Ben Conway, overseeing a trio of multi-asset funds of funds.
Appealing to younger investors
Investing in Hawksmoor’s digital capabilities is another key area of focus. Soar thinks technology is one of the biggest hurdles facing wealth managers at present.
“Some firms are way ahead of the game, others are in the dark ages and a lot are somewhere in the middle,” she says.
“We have got to get a whole lot smarter in how we interact and develop, which is why getting good technology on board is vitally important.”
By ramping up Hawksmoor’s digital platform she hopes the business will appeal to younger investors, a demographic that is currently underserved by the market.
“There is a perception that firms like Hawksmoor may be unavailable to the younger generation, when in fact we are and should be easily available,” she explains. “People come into money for different reasons. They might inherit it, they might be hugely successful in their careers, they might be an entrepreneur who invents the next Amazon. But we would like to appeal to those individuals as a go-to place to put their money.”
This article first appeared in the October 2021 issue of Portfolio Adviser
