Boom in private banking for uber-rich

By Jennifer Hill

LONDON (Reuters) - They have the mooring in St Tropez and the country house in the Cotswolds but there is one other thing that the wealthy elite cannot live without: a private banker.

It is a service they can well afford. Despite the global credit crunch, the rich are getting richer and are now worth more than 400 billion pounds, according to the Sunday Times' annual Rich List, published last week.

But the private banking sector is no longer the reserve of the ultra-rich. At one time, these boutique financiers were largely concerned with old money: that of the landed gentry with their double-barrelled surnames.

But there is a growing influx, too, of new money: celebrities, City types who net huge bonuses, and rich foreigners -- from Eastern Europe, Russia and the Middle East -- coming to Britain and buying up property.

Footballers, "it" girls and entrepreneurs too busy building their businesses to handle their own money are increasingly on the books, signing up to all-inclusive money management services that come with lofty annual fee structures and unspecified tax advantages.

It follows, then, that global private banking assets under management are on the up. They are now the equivalent to the entire gross domestic product of Britain, France and Germany, or one and a half times the market capitalisation of all companies listed on the London Stock Exchange.

They hit $7.6 trillion (3.8 trillion pounds) this year -- up 128 percent on the year, according to Euromoney's benchmark annual survey of the wealth management industry.

"While concerns grow about the state of the economy, there is no doubt that global wealth continues to increase at a rapid pace," says Clive Horwood, editor of Euromoney magazine.