Episode 49: Wealth in Words: Jonathan Norbury: Lloyds Bank
In Episode 49, Caroline Garnham talks to Jonathan Norbury, head of the Key Clients team, which manages the highest profile and wealthiest clients of Lloyds Bank.
Episode Transcript
00:00.00
carolinesclub
This is episode 49 of how to keep your money I'm Caroline Garham a private client lawyer specializing in international trusts and succession planning and a pioneer of family governance I set up Caroline's club as an interdisciplinary club of private client practitioners. Where networking works. It's a space where we can listen to learn from and connect with the professionals. We want to work with I'm joined remotely by Jonathan Norwberry who is responsible for the key clients team which manages the highest profile and wealthiest clients of Lloyd's Bank Jonathan welcome to how to keep your money in my background research for this show I was particularly impressed by 1 of your quotes in which you said trusted advisor status begins when you start to do the right thing for a client for no financial reward. In the third module of my cpcp practitioner's program I refer to this as power of reciprocation as one of the 4 elements of breaking down the innate fear of the influence of strangers was with this was this something Jonathan you were taught. Or did you find out through personal experience tell me more about this quote.
01:19.32
jonathan norbury
Thanks Caroline! Um I would say is very very much around my own personal experience as we started with to work with third party introduces introduces a business. So I think if you're lucky enough to receive a qualifying business referral after saying. Thank you Ah, you want to make sure that people are kept in the loop throughout the whole process to act professionally and not let them down but then the most the most powerful thing you can do is to refer a new piece of business back to them. That's your power of reciprocation isn't it. And I think that's really the the best currency to build future business if you can do good 2 wo-way business together. Um, secondly much is spoken about the trusted advisor relationship on what it looks like um, it's quite hard to define. But I know it when I see it. For instance, you don't get a client counseling meeting at short notice which is usually a sign. They don't vary the relationship I try and help clients in all sorts of ways I might offer internships for their children or career advice I try and help them find the right advisor. Maybe the right school or some medical advice I might deal with fraud on their behalf and that's certainly 1 where building relationship facing into client complaints often. You can build a positive from from a negative dealing with client complaints. Um.
02:44.62
jonathan norbury
And I think what I might say is just generally generally small acts of kindness just to kind of build that relationship.
02:51.61
carolinesclub
I'm interested to hear that your first thing you said was you said thank you for someone who referred business to you I remember one I preferred business to a very very but of a very large client to someone before and they never said. Thank you. And I would never ah refer business to them again. Small things I totally utterly agree with you Jonathan um.
03:14.74
jonathan norbury
Lastly, that thank you is is so important because they're putting themselves on the line when they refer you There is their risk because if you get it wrong It refers bad on them. So you've really got to make sure they come out smelling of roses from this experience.
03:26.25
carolinesclub
Well we like rosess in 2023, you were given recommended status for ultra high net worth wealth manager by speer's top 500 which quoted you as saying as my career advanced. Ah, began to realize the importance of debt finance as well as investment management to understand a client's personal balance sheet and financial objectives better explain what you mean by this with some anonymous examples.
03:58.10
jonathan norbury
Yeah, so when I started my careers very much on the investment management side and I think there's a very different relationship of different cloud relationships when you're trying to win investment assets versus when you're trying to lend the money because the first one's a competitive. Often the competitive beauty parade. Ah, and the reasons why they choose you or their or the firm. So you're pitching the second is different because you've got to protect the bank's interests as well as competing for that business and and that's sometimes meaning having some quite tough conversations with the client around loan. Eligibility about income and their assets and I think not all pro-bankers are good at talking about assets as well as liabilities. Um and the clients that we deal with ah Lloyd's pro-banking invariably build their their wealth around their businesses and. Debt finance provided by lloyds for their businesses is a really important part of that. So so I would say that you need to understand the structure of a corporate balance sheet as well as a personal balance sheet and actually from a clam perspective. Obviously these are indivisible until such time as maybe they sell the business. And that also requires us to work across. Ah Lloyd's bank and work with the commercial teams in areas such as commercial property finance lend against agricultural land as well as restential property which is our kind of core business and so early on in my career at Lloyd's.
05:32.92
jonathan norbury
I Learnt the importance of delivering the whole of the bank. Um, because if you're a wealthy individual dealing with a big bank. It's really hard to know where to go and you might get rejected because you've gone to the wrong pass of the bank and on a personal level I Rather enjoy the the challenge of Debt finance. Because the solution might not always be obvious and I will look at the most cost-effective solution. Um, so it could be as simple as a secured loan against an investment portfolio alone against a residential property or it might be a more complex asset such as yeah.
06:11.13
jonathan norbury
Company shares and where you go to it I'll be quite clear with the client is this something we can deal with. Do We know someone that can help them or is it outside of our remis but I quite enjoyed that challenge of trying to to find the solution to complex lending. Um I did one last week actually won't speak. Obviously when say a client's name. It was for a commercial property and in the end we secured um a £15000000 loan against the residential property. So It was complex to go down the the property route. So but that's I Enjoy that's bit of a kind of intellect or rigor. But as I say not everyone enjoys representing the bank interests alongside um, trying to get assets from a client does that make sense.
07:01.74
carolinesclub
Ah, does absolutely um, you started your career in the city with Cli Walt Benson working in their private clients team with the founding families David Peak who was managing director of Cli Walt Benson was married. To Suzanne Kleinwalt and they lived in an eighteenth century mogul stylele mention in Oxfordshire which is within easy walking distance from my home here in the country. The family also owns the local longbre village shop which it leases to the community for a peppercorn rent. You said you did not know the. The the term in those days but nowadays this would be described as a family office role tell me more about your work with family offices and why families set them up.
07:48.14
jonathan norbury
So we're talking a second ago about how clients build up their commercial assets and then if they have liquidity events and sell them. It's kind of quite a fundamental change in their life and often when they're working. Ah you know. Have a corporate business that they own they're probably going to work alongside their existing finance director or finance team who probably also look up to their personal tax. Potentially their investments and then the account consolidation that goes on with that. So when the business is sold. They often find they need to retain this function. And quite often. The former fd is then employed in a personal capacity to establish a new team around their in large personal wealth and I think there's all sorts of considerations. Go into that but privacy has got to be a key consideration and in addition, the. Coordination of professional advisors. So if you have beauty parades for wealth managers you employ 3 wealth managers. Someone's got to consolidate all that information. Um, keep it on the straight and narrow deal with the lawyers deal with the accountants do the tax Returns. So I think it's kind of you can see why. People might want to have something that is their own establishments and I got a little anecdotes actually I think I was thinking back on this one so 1987 Pearson Plc was facing a hostile bid from Rupat Rupert Murdoch's news corporation and the.
09:20.80
jonathan norbury
Pearson Family headquarters at that point in millbank tyre on the embankment and suddenly they realized if this hostile bid went through all their family data was sitting in the corporates and might be acquired so they had then established one of the earlier family offices called Billbank Financial Services
09:31.41
carolinesclub
And.
09:39.52
jonathan norbury
And I dare say that's so a name you've come across in in the past. So just kind of interesting why that that sense of privacy creating your own legal entity protects your privacy and becomes that vehicle for managing family assets into the future. Um.
09:41.39
carolinesclub
And.
09:56.55
jonathan norbury
We've got quite a lot of family office relationships in my private banking team. We're also quite lucky we work with I think it's probably quite a rareity within Lloyd's banking group on the commercial side. We have a commercial family office and private capital team under a lovely lady called come in peacock. And so we we work quite closely together because they can manage those commercial assets of family. Um, and we'll manage the individual individual bank accounts for that family and then we have a third leg to that which is also working with. Kasanovve and I think we're going to speak about this in a moment but we have this third -party relationship with kasnove capital and there's a very good family office team under lady called claire anderson sater called schroeder's family office and so we kind of work together on those 3 different hubs. Um, with some of these kind of quite complex and large family groups and these are typically um you know entrepreneurial families who may have multiple business assets that might sit in different parts of the bank. They might be managed by different specialist teams within the bank. And quite often. They have a holding company or investment company that sits on top of that and that requires a very different approach from a commercial perspective to just managing a trading business. So it's trying to pull that whole thing together and I think.
11:25.81
jonathan norbury
What clients like is ah a seamless approach to to how we manage both their their commercial and their personal Business. So I think that's the kind of Nirvana in a perfect world trying to pull the whole thing together. Um, and potentially have you know sometimes a single point ah point of contact. But also knowledge and legal agreement that we can share data and so work together as as one team for that class.
11:50.75
carolinesclub
Yeah, that reflects very much my experience as well. Jonathan ah lloitz had a global presence in Africa and the Middle East Asia and the pacific north america and South America but in 2010 this was reduced so it's primarily a Uk entity you read languages at Durham University have you found your language skills useful in working with wealthy high profile families in a global bank and has this diminished now that the lloyds has. Has receded into the u k.
12:25.52
jonathan norbury
Sadly I never use my languages in the way I hopeed us get to use them I always imagine myself working in France speaking ever better french um as well as having kind of long you know, long, relaxed lunch breaks by the river saying it never happened. However I do get sent to. Laardd sent me to Tokyo for a couple years and I ran an asset management business in Tokyo and so I decided to try and learn basic japanese I wanted to be able to order food in restaurants or go on a train so I rather kind of I rather learn some phrases. For Tetsen Noshinga dar s magati could sigh at the next traffic light please turn left so I worked out I worked out how to get home late at night by getting into a taxi. Um, but yes that but that was great, fun. But and and I think for anyone if you if you manage to have a few years working abroad. It's very. It's very liberating but sadly I did not use my languages in the way that I thought I was going to use them.
13:26.75
carolinesclub
Well, it's sad that you haven't been able to spend more time on the banks of the river seine over long lunches. But maybe you keep that for your holidays now after university you were commissioned into the army for 5 years I was fortunate enough to be a trustee of the museum of the household cavalry. Soldiers are distinguished by the plumes on their helmets and their black horses which guard the official entrance from whitehall to Buckingham Palace what struck me most about the soldiers were their manners consideration for others and seamless teamwork. How do these qualities get embedded into a soldier's psyche and do these character traits help you work for very wealthy people in a private bank.
14:12.70
jonathan norbury
Yeah I be one I've been thinking about recently because looking back I realized that my time in the army is very formative and hugely helpful for my for my career in the city in dealing with pra plants. And it's a quite simple lesson. So for instance, my first day at Santos I just left university you know university you kind of guess up late you roll into a lecture fiveb minutes late 10 minutes late so my first my first parade ever at santo I rocked up 5 minutes late I got what is called a rifting. I got a complete telling off in very vulgar language about why I'll never do that again and that happens because since then I always turn up early for meetings I hate the idea of being late so that was the first thing I len the second thing was also sanursts lesson so Santos has a moto. It's ah it's called serb to lead. And what that means is that the people the men and women you're responsible for they are your first priority and that also means that their interests come before yours and I think that's certainly very well in my city career and I hope it's allowed me to build teams that work well together because. I recognize if I put their interests first they will be loyal. They will respect me and hopefully we can do good business together. The second one I learned very quickly as a young officer was the the power of delegation I didn't mean this just in the sense of.
15:43.30
jonathan norbury
Getting everyone else to do the business that I can't be bothed into what happens when you first as a officer you you often try and do everything and then you fail because what you hadn't appreciate is you've got 20 other people there who've got much more experience than you have and so you've got to use their skills. Um, and recognize their skills and I think that is part of the yeah, the art of team management of building a disparate group of people and then trying to to use their skills in different ways and as a private banker. Also it's your job to serve clients.
16:11.58
carolinesclub
Um, and.
16:19.98
jonathan norbury
But you can't be supine or deferential. You've got to sometimes have robust and challenging conversations with them but not in in an aggressive way so I think it's a way of getting your message across. Um sometimes a hard message but without antagonizing people they say that's the end of the meeting and they kind of walk up the room. You don't want that. Um, and then the other aspect of the military looking back was the the ability to speak in public and to get a message across and as a private banker the art of communication is vital and how you tailor your style depending. Who you're speaking to. We're speaking 1 to 1 sometimes you're speaking to a board of trustees. Sometimes you're speaking to audience of a hundred people and you have to tailor your approach and what you say and how you sit in a different way. So I think the military built my self confidenceence to do this um. And it allowed me to feel comfortable engaging with very wealthy and high- profile people and I think that's something I can do quite well now I'm I I've lost that nervousness I'm still excited by it. But I've kind of lost that nervousness that you you lose your way. And I find that one of my great privileges of the role of the people I put in front of and I just think that's the most exciting thing and it's one of the things that I love most about the job.
17:44.24
carolinesclub
And how did the military do this it Very very briefly.
17:49.84
jonathan norbury
Um, in terms of communication or in terms of.
17:53.75
carolinesclub
Um, did they How did they communicate this this confidence to you.
17:58.51
jonathan norbury
Basically they put your situations you fail quite a few times. It's It's the leadership aspect of having to stand up in front of people and articulate a mission about what is the situation where we're going to get to what do we need to do? What are our resources involved. What are the timings involved in that so there is kind of quite a formulaic way of of giving ah giving commands in the army and I think that kind of that that that kind of inserts itself like ah um, you know a chip a microchip into my mind about that will also think precision. And communication. Um, Army doesn't believes enough Army doesn't like waffling Communication. So As scientists you are taught to to write very succinct briefing notes and and and orders and the thing about orders is they've got to be clear if you're taking people into war and you're trying to explain. Why are they doing that what they need to do where do they need to be etc. You have to be extremely clear about it. Um, So I think there is a lack of waffle in that that's quite important.
19:02.61
carolinesclub
Thank you, you joined the city in 1986 and after working with several investment management houses joined Lloyd's in 2010 here you oversaw the Lloyd Schroeder joint venture in 2019 when schroer's personal finance kazenove capital and Lloyd's commercial banking clients were actively introducing the services and products of the other firms in my training program I extolll the benefits of working with other organizations to serve your clients better. Tell me a little about this joint venture and what sorts of problems you can resolve together which you can't do otherwise.
19:44.40
jonathan norbury
Yeah, well I was very excited when we announced this because when I first joined we had. We had a prout bank in geneva and we were and and an investment capability and that was sold in 2012 so I felt we had a. You know that we need to substantially upgrade the investment offering we had and that meant the best way of doing that for the top end clients was to go into some form of joint venture. So it. It. Ah there was it went through various stages but the the bottom line was the the joint venture in the end. Was with Schroeder's plc so we created a new business called schroder's personal wealth 51% anded by Lloyd's 49% owned by Schroeder's and that was that is an advice driven business ah predominantly giving ukfinancial advice um, but for me, we also had a need to deal with our top-in clients with ah you know their multiple millions and indeed they might be non-door so have assets outside of the Uk and we we took an additional 19% shareholding in casno capital and in fact, part of my team. A number of individuals and the linked clients and their investment portfolios moved to Kasno Capital so I very much took it upon myself to build the links the 3 willings between Lloyd's Pro banking um between the commercial size of.
21:15.50
jonathan norbury
Lloyd's which is where the wealth was emanating and with with casno capsule as well and I think our clients love the option of being introduced. The difference is for lloyd's it's not mandatory. So when we sign someone up. We say our core business is banking lending. And that's what we do? Well, we're a big commercial and retail bank. We spend lots of money on our banking app and that's our core business. Um, if you would like to meet our joint venture partner Kazan of capital then this is what they can do a lot of private banks make it mandatory. If you want to sign up for private banking. You have to lodge x million in their private banking service. So we don't make it mandatory. Um, and I think clients really like that that it's it's there. It's a quality name. It's also named they will recognize the schroers and the casnobe names. The Uk have great resonance. So it's not difficult to position this without trying to say who is this casmove you know people don't ask that question. Um, so we've created this jargon is a bit open architecture type model. But we also have third party agreements with other firms. So we also work with ey on the tax side if clients want that we also work with people like mx on their centurion cards. So there's a number of third party agreements we have and I kind of slightly think of it as a.
22:46.60
jonathan norbury
Like and I pronounce this properly smorga Bor I haven't produced pronounce it properly sorry that's the 1 Thank you? Um, so you you present this you don't have to you can eat as much as you want as little as you want because we don't make it mandatory but it does mean that. Um.
22:50.13
carolinesclub
Hawkkers Board the Schmorgas board.
23:05.94
jonathan norbury
You know we we have that available to to clients. Um, and I think they understand what our core business is and they understand the schroers Plc its core business is asset Management. So I think the ability to work with top class partners and offer these to clients is a very sensible business model. And and and it's one that the clients have an affinity with and something I feel it just it just works. Well, it is not difficult in the slightest. They don't have to take it. But if they do want to take it then we'll work close together.
23:28.90
carolinesclub
And.
23:40.56
carolinesclub
I think that's very powerful indeed. Jonathan um I know you're actively involved in charity work. A trustee of the old Vic Theater Global makes noise and in-house charities for classic fm capital heart and Lbc Radio explain to us what this entails given your skills and experience as a banker and maybe some of the perks of working for entertainment businesses. Now you can't sit along the same and practice your french.
24:12.90
jonathan norbury
Yeah, and this is what I can talk about for quite a long time so it won't be too long but when I started my career in the city. It was interesting at that time our clients were lance estates. That's where the wealth of the nation was it wasn't so much entrepreneurs. It was people who owned property and assets. And invariably they had chattable trusts. So my introduction to that was really the management. The investment management of chartable funds. Um, so maybe but surprisingly after a while I was asked to become a trustee of a small trust which had an office in. For strange I'm going to talk about news corporation again because this is the news corporation. Ah, ah in whopping and so we had a small trust and I got involved at that that merged and became something called the East End Community Foundation and obviously a lot of community foundations. Around the country and I think once you've been the trusty once you tend to get asked again. The next time I was approached become a trusty with something called global makes a noise which is the um you might recall it. It was once upon a time called help a London child who so set set up by Attenborough. But when they merged classic fm and capital they decided they need to be a bit more national not just London so this was the this is the in-house charity. We raise about £5000000 a year. Um the officers of still Leicester square if you can remember you might remember that these the capsule radio banner in the top left of.
25:48.75
jonathan norbury
Lesster Square and that's still that's still the mothership they broadcast everything from their lbc Capsule Heart classic all broadcast from that building Absolutely fascinating the average age I walk in there is probably about 23 their use of technology their understanding of the demographics. They've just. Different businesses the classic fm audience and what they want versus an X or an lbc audience. So Really interesting for that from that perspective and we raise about £5000000 a year to go to small charities. Um, and then there's the.
26:26.97
jonathan norbury
Artistic bit. So I'm very keen to support artistutic community and and the elvic theater I've been involved in since about 2001 and I chair the dumb and fun. So often I bought in obviously with a kind of financial bias to help on the finance committee or that type of area. Um. And then recently we've been I've been involveded involved a bunch of philanthropists alongside the big give and we've created a match funding. We've all contributed towards a match funding fund so two and a half million that's going to go towards arts and culture in the Uk with a bias towards. Helping you know, regional arts who've had a very tough time. Um and then actually there's one more because yesterday I spent the day in in woworth scrubs prison which is something a little bit different and that was a charity called the twinning project and that's linking football clubs.
27:13.50
carolinesclub
7
27:22.87
jonathan norbury
It's a joint venture between football clubs and her master's prison service where we provide we provide funding for coaching football coaching for finally finally a prisoners in prison. Um, and that was set up by a wonderful chap called David Dean who is quite famous. Time at arsenal and bringing arsson venning vener to to Arsland as well. So that's been very very inspirational It's also quite shocking going around prisons for instance 63% of men will reoffend within 1 year being released. Going around the prison yesterday most of the inmates are spending 18 hours a day in their cells. They get 2 exercise sessions a week of 1 hour each. That's all so and then we went to go and see the kitchens the kitchens they don't sit down for lunch. They take it back to their cell.
28:17.74
carolinesclub
O.
28:19.97
jonathan norbury
It's really quite shocking and yeah, okay, if I'm feeling a bit passionate today. It's because I was there. Yes, then it is quite shocking so what we hope to do is to reduce reoffending give people exercise and motivation in prison and reduce reoffending and we've got Oxford University doing the outcome testing for that and we're just going live with some of those results. So yes I get I get very involved in in things philanthropic. But also I try to be an advocate to our clients that if they create multiple millions tens of millions hundreds of millions how much they want to leave their children and what what do they want their legacy to be what do they want their legacy to be during their lifetime What do they want to be their legacy to be after death. How much do they want to leave their children and when you had those conversations. Lots of people think actually yeah okay maybe I should be doing something sooner rather than later. Maybe I should be setting up ah either giving some of my money or setting up a foundation or a donor revised fund or something and that's another one. Actually we can work together with our with our partners at Kasnov Capsula as well on that philanthropic side. So yeah, a big personal interest for me. But I think very aligned. To our cloud base as well. I.
29:36.80
carolinesclub
Um I can hear the passion and your voice on that Jonathan? Thank you for joining me today on how to keep your money It has been a pleasure to hear what you do for your clients and of course for your charities I set up Caroline's club and put together my cpcp. Training program to bring together the experience and good practices that so many private client practitioners like Jonathan know about such as how to build trust with clients and the power of collaboration but may not fully understand why if you would like to find out more about our club. Training program and our podcast professionals go to our website on Caroline's Club and click on our member site preview Jonathan. Thank you again for your time and joining me here today. It has been a huge pleasure you.
30:23.31
jonathan norbury
Thank you.
