citywire.com by Daniel Gil / 19 Dec, 2022
Banorte Securities is implementing a new growth strategy to expand its brokerage and wealth management services to some of Mexico’s largest institutional investors by recruiting advisors from rival wirehouses, according to its CEO Xavier Ibarrola.
The Houston-based investment manager and brokerage arm of Mexico’s Grupo Financiero Banorte is looking to provide wholesale banking and wealth management services to Mexican institutional clients as local investors move assets into the US offshore market, Ibarrola told Citywire in an interview.
‘We are 100% in growth mode going into 2023,’ he said, adding that his firm was planning to ‘provide broker-dealer and RIA services in a wholesale manner to Mexican institutional clients.’
As part of its new strategy heading into the new year, Banorte Securities is targeting roughly $400m in new assets, which Ibarrola said would come from new financial advisor additions over the next few months from rival wirehouses active in the US offshore space, including Morgan Stanley.
Ibarrola said his firm was in talks with several advisors from Morgan Stanley with Mexican clients who were disgruntled by recent account restrictions the wirehouse had implemented that had impacted their Latin American clients.
‘We’ve already received several inquiries, and hiring will be one of the levers we pull on to foster our inorganic growth,’ he said.
As part of the new strategy, Banorte Securities’s advisors will also be working more closely with Grupo Financiero Banorte’s private banking division as the unit’s clients also move assets into the offshore market ahead of an expected poor economic outlook and performance in Mexico’s local stock market.
Banorte Securities was also embarking on a new digital initiative aimed at developing its wealth management platform for mass affluent investors, said Ibarrola. The initiative would also include the addition of new funds, investment products and model portfolios on Banorte Securities’ investment platform, which would include an expansion of lending and insurance services being made available to its clients.
Banorte Securities embarked on a similar growth strategy in December 2021, expanding the footprint of its Houston, Texas-based headquarters and hiring an additional 10 employees.