The rapid expansion of Singapore’s independent wealth management sector has been widely celebrated, but growth brings its own set of pressures. As the number of External Asset Managers (EAMs) and Multi-Family Offices (MFOs) has climbed from fewer than 20 to roughly 130 to 140 over the past fifteen years, the market has become not only more competitive but more costly, more complex, and more demanding of the firms that operate within it. For smaller, founder-led firms in particular, the challenge is existential: how to remain viable in an environment where costs rise predictably but revenues do not.

At a recent Hubbis Independent Wealth Management event in Singapore, the opening panel examined the realities of the independent model in 2026. Among the panellists, Urs Brutsch, Managing Partner and Founder of HP Wealth Management, offered a characteristically forthright assessment of what independence means in practice, where its true value lies, and why focus, scale, and cost discipline will separate the survivors from the rest.

Key Takeaways


Independence Is About Customisation, Not Outperformance: The core advantage of the independent model lies in the ability to tailor portfolios to individual client needs, not in claiming superior investment returns relative to large private banks.
Cost Pressure Is Structural and Relentless: With fixed costs rising annually and revenues tied to new client acquisition, the economics of independence demand constant vigilance and a clear-eyed approach to growth.
Scale Is Becoming a Prerequisite: Firms that wish to serve clients across both public and private markets, while absorbing the rising costs of compliance, cybersecurity, and technology, increasingly need to reach a meaningful threshold of size.
Specialisation Beats Diversification: Attempting to in-source every advisory discipline, from tax planning to estate structuring, risks diluting quality and diverting resources from core competency.
Technology Is Essential for Customisation at Scale: The very flexibility that defines independence, the ability to run bespoke portfolios across multiple custodians, creates operational complexity that only technology can resolve.

 

Customisation as the Honest Proposition

From the opening exchange, Brutsch set a tone that was notable for its candour. Where the panel’s first question invited participants to assess whether independents deliver measurably better portfolio outcomes, Brutsch resisted the temptation to overstate the case.

“I think it would be very ambitious for a small firm like us to pretend we can do as well as UBS or JP Morgan in portfolio construction,” he said. “I am not saying we are doing less well than them. I think in terms of performance, we do not have to hide. But what we can do is really customise portfolios.”

The distinction is important. Brutsch’s argument is not that independent firms produce inferior returns, but that claiming outperformance as the primary differentiator is both unrealistic and unnecessary. The genuine advantage, in his view, lies elsewhere: in the ability to construct bespoke strategic asset allocations that reflect each client’s specific circumstances, risk appetite, and objectives.

“At a bank, they put you into a box on a standard model portfolio,” he explained. “As an independent asset manager, you need to have the flexibility to play to the client and basically have a customised strategic asset allocation.”

It is a proposition rooted in intellectual honesty rather than marketing ambition. Large institutions benefit from vast research capabilities, deep product shelves, and global execution infrastructure. Independent firms cannot replicate that scale. What they can offer, Brutsch argued, is something the banks structurally struggle to deliver: genuine personalisation, unconstrained by internal product mandates or standardised portfolio models.

The Unforgiving Economics of Independence

If Brutsch’s view of the independent value proposition was measured, his assessment of the economic realities was blunt. The cost dynamics facing smaller firms, he argued, are not cyclical but structural, and they are intensifying.

“If I look at our P&L, the only guarantee I have for next year is that my costs will go up,” he said. “Revenues will only go up if I acquire new clients, because to increase fees for clients, as we know, is very difficult. You cannot do it every year. You upset the client every year.”

The arithmetic is straightforward but punishing. Rent, salaries, insurance, compliance costs, and cybersecurity expenditure all rise annually by two, three, or four per cent. Revenue, by contrast, is a function of asset growth and new business acquisition, neither of which can be guaranteed. Management fees, as another panellist noted, are charged as a percentage, but the service providers that independent firms rely upon do not charge percentages. The result is a structural margin squeeze that compounds year on year.

“And we add new costs that did not exist before,” Brutsch acknowledged. “Cybersecurity, for example. So, yes, the margins are being squeezed.”

This is not a problem that can be solved by optimism or incremental efficiency gains. In Brutsch’s framing, it is a problem that demands scale, both to absorb rising fixed costs and to access the breadth of investment capability that clients increasingly expect.

Scale and the Private Markets Imperative

Brutsch was direct about what he believes will define the winners in the next decade of independent wealth management: size, and the ability to serve clients across both public and private markets.

“I think the winners will be large companies, because the cost pressure will continue to be immense in this part of the world,” he said. “You need to have a certain scale if you want to be able to be strong in the public markets and the private markets. I think that is one of the elements, in my view, for winners going forward.”

The reference to private markets is significant. As client portfolios increasingly incorporate allocations to private equity, private credit, real estate, and infrastructure, firms that lack the scale to source, evaluate, and administer these investments risk losing relevance. Private market access requires dedicated expertise, operational infrastructure, and, in many cases, minimum commitment sizes that are difficult for smaller firms to meet on behalf of individual clients.

For Brutsch, scale is therefore not merely a commercial preference but an operational necessity. Without it, firms cannot offer the full spectrum of investment opportunities that sophisticated clients demand, nor can they absorb the regulatory and compliance costs that continue to expand.

The Case for Focused Outsourcing

On the question of whether independent firms should attempt to deliver integrated advice spanning succession, governance, tax, and structuring, Brutsch was unequivocal: firms should focus on what they know best and outsource the rest.

“We should avoid the temptation of doing all things to everybody,” he said. “I think there are much more capable people out there when it comes to estate planning, wealth planning, tax advice, and all that. We do not do that in-house, because we would never have the best people in all of those disciplines all the time.”

It is a position that runs counter to the trend among some larger independents toward building out multi-disciplinary advisory platforms. But Brutsch’s logic is grounded in quality control rather than cost avoidance. The disciplines adjacent to wealth management, from cross-border tax structuring to governance design, are each deep specialisms in their own right. Attempting to maintain best-in-class capability across all of them simultaneously, while also running an investment management business, is, in his view, a recipe for dilution.

“So, we try to focus on what we know best,” he said, “and that is supporting the family of the client on the journey and providing solid wealth management for them.”

Technology as the Enabler of Customisation

Brutsch’s comments on technology were directly connected to his earlier point about customisation. The very flexibility that defines the independent model, running bespoke portfolios with different asset allocations across multiple custodian banks, creates a layer of operational complexity that is difficult to manage manually.

“If you customise, then it is very much more difficult to scale up, because you work with different custodian banks, with different portfolios or asset allocations,” he explained. “Every time you make a change, it is a challenge to execute all of that across the different banks and the different mandates.”

Technology, in this context, is not a growth strategy in itself but the infrastructure that makes the core proposition viable at scale. Without robust systems for portfolio management, trade execution, and reporting across multiple custodians, the promise of customisation quickly becomes an operational burden that limits growth rather than enabling it.

“Technology is a must if you want to scale up,” Brutsch concluded. It was a statement delivered without elaboration, because in his view, the point requires none.

Discipline Over Ambition

Throughout the discussion, Brutsch’s contributions reflected a consistent philosophy: that the independent model’s strength lies in disciplined focus, not in expansive ambition. Independence, in his framing, is not a licence to do everything differently from the banks. It is a mandate to do fewer things, but to do them with genuine personalisation, rigorous cost management, and an honest appraisal of what a small firm can and cannot deliver.

As the independent wealth management sector in Singapore enters a more competitive and cost-constrained phase, that discipline may prove to be the most valuable asset of all. The firms that endure will not be those that promised the most, but those that understood their limitations and built their businesses accordingly. It is a message that Brutsch, having navigated the sector since its earliest days, delivered with the quiet authority of long experience.