Buy or build

In a commoditised market, it's far easier to buy than build a client base.

Andrew Carrier

Feb 15, 2026

Issue № 157 | London, Sunday 15 February 2026

Read on to learn why:

① Banks love wealth management for its less volatile, capital-light income.

② Marketing a commodity requires choosing a clear, compelling niche.

③ It’s a good time to be a boutique asset manager.

④ The tokenisation of all asset classes continues, despite apathy from investors.

⑤ AI is driving B2B marketers to invest in content and brand building.

⑥ Breadth, seniority and humanity protect from the job market’s collapse.

⑦ As AI’s capabilities surge, so will the demand for human qualities.

What's new

NatWest bought wealth manager Evelyn Partners this week, CityAM reports.

① In short:

“NatWest splashed a whopping £2.7bn to snap up Evelyn Partners – significantly more than some shareholders had expected – taking the wealth manager out of the hands of private equity owners Permira and Warburg. The move also thrusts NatWest deeper into the wealth management space – an area where UK banks are desperate to gain a foothold. […] Taking Evelyn’s £69bn assets under management under the NatWest umbrella, the bank will now boast a total of £127bn assets, making it the largest of the bank-owned wealth managers.”
“NatWest has exposure to the wealth market through Coutts, which is renowned for serving the ultra-high-net-worth with a cool £1m entry requirement to open an account. This differs from the base of Evelyn which focuses on the mass affluent and professional classes in search of smart, tech-led advice to grow their nests.”
“Barclays has doubled down on its private bank division, where total income reached £697m in the first half of 2025. Meanwhile, Lloyds’ Charlie Nunn brought a flavour of his old role when he took to the helm at the bank in August 2021. The former head of wealth and personal banking made expanding Lloyds mass affluent range one of his defining missions with targets including increasing high net worth clients’ total holdings with the bank – everything from savings to pensions and investments – by over ten per cent.”

Why it matters

I was chatting to a business head at one of the big advisory firms this week. She asked me what was different about financial services. There are a few factors, I replied. It’s regulated, obviously, but - more so than any other sector, it’s trust and relationship based. Perhaps as a result, its marketing tends to be deeply conservative and risk-averse. In short, it’s one of the hardest sectors in which to be responsible for growth. And that’s before we face the biggest challenge of all: it’s largely commoditised. Everyone is offering the same product and most are positioning it the same way. Never was this more true than in wealth management. Visit any wealth manager’s website and the homepage will tell you how they: protect capital, grow wealth and invest purposefully. Yawn.

Why did NatWest spend nearly £4 billion to acquire £69 billion of new AUM? The uncomfortable truth is that, when chasing growth in a commoditised market, it’s sometimes easier to buy clients than to build up a client base from scratch. The transaction will allow the bank to absorb Evelyn’s hybrid-advice technology and consumer-facing platform Bestinvest, giving it an obvious route to ramp up the investment opportunities for its customers - both existing and the ones its just purchased.

Natwest is far from the only firm to be facing this commercial reality. We talked about it back in October when JPMorgan rebounded Nutmeg:

Nutmeg’s integration into JP Morgan underscores the shifting dynamics of the retail investment market, where established financial services groups are increasingly absorbing or outcompeting smaller fintech challengers. Meanwhile, just this week, Robinhood is taking aim, Quilter is rebranding, and - most notable of all - Lloyds and Schroders are abandoning their joint venture and rethinking their approach to wealth management. Serving the mass-affluent is clearly alluring but a tricky thing to get right.

So, the story matters because it illustrates how damn hard it is in financial services to differentiate enough to persuade clients to move from their existing provider.

What to do about it

Take action

② Let’s assume you don’t have a spare £4 billion lying around to play M&A with. The good news is - even in a commoditised market - buying clients isn’t your only option. It is possible to attract them but it demands standing out from the crowd, choosing a clear, compelling niche then owning it. Some ideas:

Independent wealth mangers - The “Life Transition” focus: Specialise in a specific life transition moment that creates wealth management needs -executives approaching retirement, business owners planning succession, divorcees restructuring finances, medical professionals mid-career. Build all marketing around understanding that specific transition, the emotional and financial complexities involved, and how to navigate it.
Boutique asset managers - The “Educator” focus: Use radical transparency and investor education as your differentiation. Create exceptional educational content that actually teaches investors how markets work, how to evaluate fund performance, what fees really mean, and how to think about risk. Don’t hide behind jargon or mystique. Make your investment process, decision-making, and even fee structures completely transparent. Use this to build long-term trust, particularly with younger HNW individuals and family offices who value authenticity over mystique.
Commercial banks - The “Partner” focus: Rather than positioning as a generalist, become the bank for a specific sector (e.g., healthcare practices, construction firms, logistics companies). Develop proprietary research, benchmarking data, and sector-specific financial guidance that demonstrates intimate knowledge of that industry’s cash flow patterns, regulatory challenges, and growth cycles.

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Top stories

The other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

City stunned by Nuveen’s £10bn swoop on Schroders

③ It’s a good time to be a boutique asset manager.

“City analysts were stunned by Thursday morning’s announcement that Schroders has entered into a surprise £9.9bn deal with Nuveen, which holds $1.4 trillion in assets, after speculation of a sale was rebuffed in July.”
“The acquisition - which will bring to an end nearly two centuries of independence for Schroders - is set to create one of the world’s largest active asset managers, with nearly £1.8 trillion in assets under management across institutional and wealth channels.”
“While the company confirmed Schroders will retain its brand and its London offices to serve as the group’s non-US headquarters and largest office, for unhappy shareholders and industry figures the move points towards a slow demise of London’s equity market.”

TECHNOLOGY

LSEG to build on-chain settlement utility

④ The tokenisation of all asset classes continues, despite apathy from investors.

“The LSEG DSD, a market infrastructure solution for institutional market participants, will be fully interoperable, connecting traditional and digital markets, supporting multiple chains, and seamless interaction between existing settlement platforms and emerging digital infrastructures. The first deliverable is planned for 2026, subject to regulatory approval.”
“The new DSD capability will drive greater collateral management efficiencies and facilitate access to liquidity for a broad range of assets, including fixed income, equities, and private markets.”
“LSEG is building to a future where most bonds issued and available on exchanges - and eventually most securities - are tokenised, enabling market participants to benefit from greater transparency and improved efficiency.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

US B2B marketers have the biggest budgets and the lowest confidence

⑤ AI is driving B2B marketers to invest in content and brand building.

“Over half (55%) of U.S. marketers reported budget increases in 2026, while 37% were asked to make cuts - most of them under 10%. But even with the largest budgets of any region, U.S. marketers reported the lowest confidence in meeting growth targets. That disconnect is striking. The data suggests that after aggressive investment in 2025, some marketing programs may have outpaced market demand.”
“Despite those doubts, U.S. marketers aren’t shying away from bold investments. They are leaning into long-term plays — especially content and brand building - which together account for 15.8% of overall spend. That’s not just a branding push; it’s likely part of a growing strategy to capture organic traffic from AI-generated search.”
“Product marketing and lead generation are holding steady and being funded at similar levels. But the standout trend is AI. U.S. companies are leading in investment in AI tools designed to scale product marketing and research - a clear signal that automation and insight generation are now baked into growth strategies.”

WILDCARD

The Great Stay and the quiet collapse of the marketing job market

⑥ Breadth, seniority and humanity protect from the job market’s collapse.

“By any conventional economic measure, this should be a perfectly reasonable time to look for a marketing job. And yet anyone who has actually tried knows the market is horrendous. It has never been worse. And it’s tightening further.”
“What should you do if you’re sitting inside this market?”
- “First, if you have a decent marketing job, think very carefully before leaving. The grass is not greener. It is increasingly artificial turf. The job-switching salary premium has halved from 8% in early 2023 to just 4% in 2025.”
- “Second, if you are looking, the market rewards breadth and seniority. Companies want marketers who can work across the full scope of the discipline – strategy, research, brand, comms, pricing – not specialists in one narrow channel.”
- “Third, become genuinely proficient with AI. Not ‘I’ve used ChatGPT a few times’ proficient. Functionally, quietly proficient. The marketers who will thrive can use AI to multiply their output and make a team of three perform like a team of eight.”
- “Fourth, invest in the skills AI cannot replicate. Judgement. Relationships. Management. Leadership. The ability to sit in front of a CEO and make the case for a brand investment that won’t pay back for three years. The ability to say no to a bad idea when the algorithm says yes. […] These are not skills that can be prompted into existence. They are built over years and they are, for now, irreplaceable.”

“AI is not a temporary disruption that will settle down and eventually dissipate like a bad recession. […] We can expect an imminent and permanent structural change that will reshape how many people are needed to do this work.”

Off cuts

The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter.

The last word

⑦ CityAM editor-in-chief Christian May on AI stealing your job:

Christian May. Source: LinkedIn, 14 February 2026

“While my sector will be challenged and empowered by AI in equal measure, just as yours will be – I think that humanity, trust, credibility and experience are all going to surge in value precisely because of the surge in AI’s capabilities.”

Don’t settle for marketing.

Aspire to InMarketing.

Wishing you an interactive week,

P.S. This is the best thing I read this week.

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