Private banks set sights on Malaga for its economic strength and dynamism

Major investment fund managers, such as José Ramón Iturriaga, whose Okavango Delta fund is consistently among the top performers investing in the Spanish stock market, are making frequent visits to Malaga. Sales teams also include Malaga city in their investor meetings, as exemplified by the event held this summer by DWS, Deutsche Bank's fund manager. An increasing number of financial advisory groups are opening offices in Malaga. One of the most recent examples is Creand Wealth Management, which signed up Rafael Álvarez-Net, a veteran banker with 25 years of experience with Deutsche Bank in Marbella, as director of its branch in the Costa del Sol capital, in the heart of Soho district. Singular Bank, the group whose CEO is Javier Marín, who previously held the same position at Santander Bank under Emilio Botín as chair, has been operating in the city for a bit longer. To these names must be added Mutuactivos, which regards its Malaga branch as one of its most important in all Spain.

While all these new arrivals of small independent firms that are opening offices on the Costa del Sol are a sign of the growing critical mass in this sector, it is the traditional financial institutions, the banks, that continue to lead in wealth asset management. They hold the dominant position in this financial segment, having always had a presence in Malaga. For example, Caixabank has two centres, one in Malaga city and the other in Marbella, serving its entire branch network, as well as its corporate banking divisions, Holabank and Agrobank. Banks, in general, seek to grow their off-balance-sheet assets, that is, they want to sell more mutual investment funds and pension plans and increase their client base because these are more profitable. Following the presentation of its latest strategic plan, with the aim of boosting this business, Unicaja Bank has not only renamed its private banking division as Unicaja Banca Privada, but has also renamed its asset management company as Unicaja Asset Management, a division with which it has reached agreements with BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, and with Allianz Global Investors, also in the top ten of the sector globally.

So, something is definitely happening in Malaga, with an increasing number of private banks, asset managers and financial advisory firms. The Costa del Sol has become a tempting target for this lucrative sector, which selects the most exclusive clientele to help them invest. Creand admits they are targeting clients with capital that exceeds one million euros. Meanwhile, Singular Bank's CEO explained to SUR that they have brought both of their two business models to Malaga: pure private banking and their Self Bank brand, the latter being for investors who, regardless of their net worth, have the know-how and desire to manage their own money. Juan Torres, head of Mutuactivos in Malaga and Andalucía, points out that they manage portfolios starting at 200,000 euros and that their average client has 500,000 euros, a figure that was 400k a year ago, although they also manage fortunes into the millions. Abante, for its part, says it accepts clients starting from just 1,000 euros.

In general, these are companies that sell their own products, but also recommend competing products to their clients: they have, as the saying goes, an "open architecture".

The wealth management industry is clearly 'tapping a vein' here, as some say. In 2009, there were already more than 10,000 people living in Malaga with an average net worth of close to one million euros, so now the figure must be much higher. "Malaga has established itself as one of the most attractive hubs in Spain," says Christian Thams, sales manager for Lombard Odier in Spain. "The reasons are clear: the number of high-net-worth individuals is growing, the business sector is dynamic and there is an increasingly sophisticated wealth management culture focused on professional planning and management," he adds. This is also a diverse ecosystem, because large local fortunes, often linked to well-established family businesses, coexist with new national and international residents who have chosen Malaga for its quality of life, dynamism and its future prospects.

Private bankers appreciate that this combination of local roots and foreign capital has enriched and provided a more global perspective on wealth management. Drawing on a quarter-century of experience, Álvarez-Net says that Malaga has grown a lot during this period and that the profile of the private banking client has also changed: "Many people have come from abroad to invest. And Malaga businesspeople have done well. While private banking clients may initially be more conservative, they now also value the range of alternative products, such as private equity and venture capital." Investment has become more sophisticated and, as Torres points out, largely thanks to the arrival of advisory firms, which show investors that there are options beyond traditional deposits.

So, in this environment, Creand is committed both to the long-standing Malaga client and to those who come to work and do business: "Oracle, Google and a host of other international companies are here and we can acquire many clients. Without a doubt, there's a market for local entrepreneurs, high-net-worth individuals from Malaga and also international investors who become residents, and we can contribute plenty here."

Javier Marín points out that Malaga has a significant business community, unlike Madrid, for example, where executive clients from large corporations or high-ranking officials predominate: "In Malaga, there are more entrepreneurs from medium and small companies who invest heavily in their own company and seek support."

Mutuactivos' regional director adds that many businesses are created in Malaga, corporate operations and other business transactions take place and all this generates clients and resources to manage: those of the business owners themselves, their investors, their management teams and the network of service providers and independent professionals who live and work in their surrounding area.

As an indication of the strength of the Malaga market, Thams provides more data: assets managed solely in investment funds have more than doubled in the last decade in Malaga, from 3.759 billion euros in 2014 to 7.573 billion euros in 2024, according to Inverco. Then, in 2024 alone, the number of fund participants in Malaga reached 274,053, almost a fifth of the total for all Andalucía. Thams adds that we are seeing increasing sophistication in investment portfolios, with the stock market now a growing presence, from which we can deduce that investors are gradually searching for greater diversification and adopting a long-term mindset.

A couple of questions linger: are there starting to be too many financial institutions? Are there enough clients for everyone? "We were the pioneers and the fact that other institutions are still arriving means we made the right decision to open here. Every little helps and all these offers can open people's eyes to a world they may not have known existed", says Ángel Diego González, director of Abante in Malaga. "Competition is a healthy thing: the better the competitor, the better I have to be," says Álvarez-Net.