“I call it the paradox of capitalism. It churns out at one end vastly rich people and at the other end vast organisations. The rich people don’t want anything to do with these organisations,” says Alexander Hoare, chief executive of UK bank Hoare & Co.
That is an exaggeration. The wealthy are more than willing to bank with behemoths like Swiss bank UBS, the world’s biggest private bank, which manages about $2120bn in assets worldwide. But they also bank with Hoare, as shown by its 55% rise in pre-tax profit to £14.9m in the financial year ending March 2006.
