Wealth Manager Profile: Stephen Vakil

Quilter is one of the most venerable of City institutions with a heritage stretching back to 1777. Now, after a seemingly endless string of name changes, Stephen Vakil, managing director of the firm’s London office, is happy it has reclaimed its original moniker. After two years under the parentage of Citigroup, the firm is now jointly owned by Citi and Morgan Stanley, a former parent of the group.

‘One big positive that has come out of the joint venture is that we have got our name back – we were Citi Quilter and now we are just Quilter,’ Vakil says. ‘It is OK showing that you are backed by a big parent but the name now underlines our independence.’

The transition of ownership has been smooth, he says, helped by the fact that many of the Morgan Stanley top brass it dealt with previously are still at the bank. The parents are hands-off, enabling Quilter to maintain its culture, which Vakil describes as that of a ‘family-run business’.

It may not look it from the outside as the firm is based in the towering St Helen’s block, between the evergreen Lloyd’s building and the spectacular Gherkin, in the heart of the City. The view from the seventeenth floor window is mightily impressive although soon to be blighted by the Cheese Grater, the next looming addition to the London skyline.

Vakil’s happiness at the firm is demonstrated by the fact that he is in his thirteenth year, or the twentieth if you count the time spent with his previous employer, Foster & Braithwaite, which merged with the then Quilter Goodison in 1996. ‘Foster & Braithwaite was a small investment boutique with around 50 people at the time of the merger and Quilter Goodison had the scale,’ he says. ‘We now have about 300 people and a lot of my colleagues from those days are still with the business.’

Vakil’s role has changed as he has risen up the ranks but he retains a number of long-standing clients, which he also believes it is important to understand the issues facing the staff he manages.

He attends a number of pitches to potential clients and it is easy to see why – affable and charming, he is a genuine people person. He is a staunch advocate of face-to-face relations, which he says have fallen by the wayside in certain parts of the industry.

Face-to-face was the norm when he started his career at corporate brokers L Messel & Co. ‘I was lucky enough to be a blue button on the floor of the stock exchange for eight weeks. They had a box under the floor, so it had no windows and just banks of telephones,’ he recalls.

‘They would radio down from our office in Old Broad Street to check the price of a stock. The blue buttons couldn’t deal but could ask a price, so you would ask the jobbers and report back. If they wanted to do anything the dealer would go back out there.

‘I also visited the floor of Liffe, which was in the Royal Exchange – it’s now full of restaurants and all very genteel and expensive. In my time the stock exchange was pretty calm but it was manic at Liffe, with all of the people running round in their different-coloured tops. It really was such a different time. While I embrace the speed and efficiency that has come into the industry, we have lost some of that face-to-face contact.’