Asset management and wealth management both exist to help you grow your money and yet they take two different approaches. Asset management focuses on the best way to grow assets through managing specific portfolio investments. Wealth management, on the other hand, refers to the management of the complete financial picture of a client, including investments, legacy planning, and more.
These strategies might sound pretty similar, but they actually have a lot of differences that could impact how you expand your wealth. Ultra-high-net-worth individuals will want to know what the similarities and differences are to ensure they get the best protection and advantages.
At Dominion, we look at this duality differently. We find neither asset management nor wealth management sufficient to deliver the kind of protection that is necessary to preserve significant wealth over several generations.
Traditional asset and wealth manager strategies are built in a financial system, regulatory, and border environment that is anything but fixed. What Dominion’s approach does is go beyond these frameworks – our priority is unbreakable wealth security.
Drawing on expertise, jurisdictional reach, and commitment to objective, evidence-based approaches, we are able to provide a bespoke level of protection in the context of a world of global resiliency, and all the time we’re two steps ahead of change.
Asset Management Is More Specific
By emphasizing personal assets and optimizing their performance, asset management is a methodical way to increase wealth. Whereas wealth management sees a client’s whole financial picture, asset management focuses on certain asset classes and provides a targeted approach for returns.
Core Functions
Asset management includes the management of a number of specific asset classes such as equities, bonds, real estate, and sometimes alternative investments such as commodities or hedge funds. The objective of asset managers is to improve the value of these assets over time and to do so by maximizing returns and managing risk carefully.
It is characterized by the fact that they work within very well-defined margins, creating portfolios and controlling the assets’ performance according to the dynamics of the market and also investment targets.
Clientele
The main target of asset management services is institutional investors such as pension funds, endowments or corporations and individual high-net-worth clients looking to achieve specific portfolio growth. These clients have a growth oriented approach to investing and are geared for active investment management.
Objective
The main objective for an asset manager is to boost assets under management (AUM) with the leveraging of market trends and financial products offering higher returns. Growth of these assets for the clients is often a key element of performance for an asset management firm while keeping exposure to market volatility to a minimum.
Scope
Typically, asset managers work in specific financial instruments. The traditional investment vehicles they use are mutual funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and structured products, each specialized for a different client profile.
It is by design that asset management’s scope remains tightly focused on maximizing returns from a set of investments without looking at any wealth-wide spectrum.
Wealth Management Is the Whole Picture
However, where asset management focuses entirely on a person’s specific interests, wealth management looks at their entire financial situation. This service goes beyond increasing wealth. Examining every aspect of a client’s financial life ensures that everything is in place for long-term stability and success.
Core Functions
On the other side of the coin, wealth management views everything about the client. It’s much broader than asset performance. It also includes tax tactics, financial planning and estate administration, so it’s a whole guidebook for keeping wealth and increasing it.
Wealth management strategies not only cover the client’s current financial situation but also their long term goals, legacy planning, and how to transfer money from one generation to the next.
Clientele
Services for wealth management are meant for those with plenty of money who want more than basic business advice. Many times, these customers want a complete financial strategy that would guard their wealth throughout time and reduce their vulnerability. For those whose financial life is complex, wealth management is a logical decision.
Objective
Keeping assets secure, avoiding taxes, and creating strategies for the anticipated and unexpected changes life brings about define wealth management. Still, growth is a major goal here. Many customers use this approach to reduce their risk, prepare themselves for retirement, and create a legacy that’s free from reliance on market fluctuations.
Scope
Wealth managers have more overall responsibility than asset managers do. They assist with a great range of tasks, including insurance, estate planning, tax preparation, and retirement planning.
Working with a client, a wealth manager must review all of their financial situation and develop plans that go beyond simple investment management. This ensures that the money of every one of their clients is interconnected and protected.
How Wealth Management and Asset Management Are Similar
Though in total wealth management and asset management represent different concepts, they do apply the same fundamental guidelines as far as customer assistance and financial growth of income is concerned. Both disciplines define the things they share in common.
Client-Centered Approach
Despite that they encompass different scopes, both asset and wealth management concern the enhancement of clients’ wealth. They’re services designed to be specific to the client’s risk tolerance, goals, and timeframe so they fit the client.
Long-Term Relationships
Asset and wealth managers strive to build long term relationships with clients whether it’s managing an investment portfolio or building a thorough financial plan. Both services are based on trust and a continuing collaboration, allowing managers to respond as clients’ circumstances and priorities evolve.
Fiduciary Obligations
As fiduciaries, asset and wealth managers are both legally obligated to act in the best interests of the clients they work with. Not only does this requirement instill transparency, it puts your financial health above that of the wealth or asset manager handling your funds. No conflicts of interest, just dedicated service for your benefit.
Dominion builds on this foundation by offering flexible financial strategies that are created solely to protect your assets no matter what jurisdiction your money’s in or what regulatory requirements are in place.
How Are Asset Management and Wealth Management Different?
While both asset management and wealth management focus on ways to maximize wealth, they are vastly different. These differences also determine how each service caters to the needs of its clients differently.
Scope and Focus
Asset management is a specialist practice aimed at the performance of individual investments and financial products. Yet it’s not only investments that wealth management oversees: It also looks after your full financial strategy, including estate planning, tax strategies, and individualized financial services.
Daily Responsibilities
The asset managers concentrate on analysis, choice, and balancing of the assets to drive portfolio performance. Instead, wealth managers play a more holistic role, managing investment portfolios, acting as liaisons, and coordinating estate and tax planning, all in service to clients’ wider financial needs.
Client Profile
Our focus is on ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWIs), and wealth management offers a full suite of services geared toward complex financial lives. Meanwhile, the client base of asset management is broader and includes, for instance, both institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals, and their objective is to target portfolio growth.
Dominion Goes Beyond Asset and Wealth Management
The world of Dominion isn’t built solely around asset or wealth management. Traditionally-secured wealth is not enough for our clients. True wealth protection is what Dominion is all about – comprehensive, adaptive, and unwavering.
Objective
Our purpose is distinct. Dominion isn’t about piecing together an asset strategy or managing a portfolio. For each client, we build a tailored framework that can withstand global shifts and protect wealth against any possible perils. Protection doesn’t stop at Dominion’s tactical plans; it’s a total, all-out dedication to protecting your assets.
Strategic Reach
Dominion can do business in many different spheres, as we don’t have to adopt any one financial or legal system. Our greatest strength is actually this adaptability; it allows us to provide precisely what every customer requires, even as international boundaries shift and laws evolve. While keeping assets and money in certain locations may have advantages, Dominion’s worldwide presence allows us to develop solutions unparalleled in scope and dependability.
We Put Wealth Governance Over Traditional Management
Dominion’s clients want more than just asset growth or preservation – they need an unbreakable system of wealth governance that guards their legacy.
Beyond Protection
Our approach isn’t about making incremental changes or hedging bets on routine preservation. Dominion creates a “bulletproof” shield around client assets that protects against any risk, now or in the future. This level of promise of reliable wealth governance goes beyond the typical wealth or asset management.
Specialized Expertise
Dominion’s team comes from special operations, intelligence, and high-stakes government roles. The skills of our professionals are unavailable outside of elite circles, mostly in the areas of electronic warfare, surveillance, and protection of infrastructure. We simply cannot afford to let our guard down from this level of specialized expertise as we protect their wealth from modern-day challenges.
Let’s Strategize Your Financial Legacy
Dominion’s role as an elite service provider is clear: We’re differentiated in a field filled with generic firms and tactics so far unproven. Dominion’s offerings are a service to UHNWIs who understand the value of serious asset protection and this peace of mind lasts for generations to come.
We believe that our clients should have nothing less than the confidence that they will have enough for their financial future through service completely dedicated to their best interest. Reach out today, let us protect your legacy.
