Klay’s High-Touch Partnership Approach with UHNWIs
“Investing isn’t just about where or what, it’s about managing the know-how – powered by tech.” – Kalpesh Khakhria
For years, boutique wealth management firms like Klay Group have thrived discreetly, shaping financial legacies outside the spotlight. In this rare interview, Kalpesh Khakhria unveils why exclusivity, agility, and bespoke expertise are the future of wealth management.
1. What differentiates Klay Capital’s investment approach in a rapidly changing global market?
Klay’s investment team is built around a multi-asset manager framework, which brings together specialists in Equities, Fixed Income, FX & Rates, Options/Derivatives, Alternative & Private Markets. Our multi-asset team functions as a ‘Team of Teams’ to leverage their asset-level experience and expertise to deliver a globally diversified, risk-adjusted portfolio that can be customized to the specific needs of our individual clients.
Our portfolios are constructed based on setting long-term target allocations to Market betas and adding security-level alpha to constitute the optimal portfolio allocation. The idea is to drive performance through asset allocation and add alpha through careful security selection based on in-depth fundamental financial analysis. Thereby delivering a globally diversified risk-adjusted portfolio to our clients.
Risk management is central to our approach. For example, prior to the pandemic, our market hedge recommendations helped some clients mitigate losses effectively. After the Pfizer vaccine announcement, we built a reflation basket that proved successful in capturing market recovery trends. Similarly, our green mining basket focused on stocks benefiting from the green energy transition, which contributed to enhanced returns. In response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, we developed a defensive healthcare portfolio and increased gold allocations to hedge against geopolitical risks, which provided effective downside protection. We also selected a high-yield specialist manager whose strategy added value as markets stabilized.
These examples illustrate how our team adapts to macro trends while maintaining a commitment to quality assets, risk management, and long-term client goals.
2. How has fintech impacted your firm’s operations and client relationships?
Fintech is revolutionizing wealth management, and its impact on our firm’s operations and client relationships is significant. Enhanced data processing through big data and alternative data sources allows more informed decisions. With predictive models and rule-based investing, we can mitigate cognitive biases and enhance risk management through behavioral analysis.
Fintech has increased our efficiency. Additionally, it has democratized access to financial advice for retail investors, driving innovation in products and enabling personalized services. However, these advancements also present new challenges, reinforcing our critical role as advisors. Ultimately, we view fintech as an enabler, helping us improve our capabilities and better serve our clients.
3. What was the motivation behind forming Klay, and how are you different from traditional wealth management firms?
During the years 2008 to 2012, we witnessed profound changes in the financial landscape leading to far-reaching consequences for the wealth management industry. Notable among these changes has been a shift in client attitudes, including increased awareness of transaction-led or product-pushing practices. As a natural corollary, clients are increasingly aware of the need for truly independent, client-centric, and bespoke investment advice, through trusted and professional client advisors who consistently have the necessary skill and experience, leading to stability and continuity in their wealth management relationships. We saw this as an opportunity, and we became pioneers in this space.
4. How does the UAE’s investment market compare to global markets in terms of growth and innovation?
Klay’s presence in seven major financial hubs makes it a natural partner for ultra-high-net-worth families and single-family offices navigating both onshore and offshore opportunities. Our corporate advisory team supports clients with structured credit and alternative solutions, addressing their broader commercial interests.
With an institutional-grade investment team, advanced technology, and global access, we help family offices achieve improved outcomes.
For those looking beyond traditional banking, Klay Asset Management provides access to prime brokerage, wider liquidity pools, and institutional-level investment execution through its Private Label fund offering.
Our approach is built on four key verticals—Wealth Management, Corporate Advisory, Multi-Family Office Services, and Asset Management—providing a comprehensive yet flexible framework for family offices. Through integrated statements and consolidated reporting, we ensure transparency and efficiency, giving families greater control over their financial landscape.
5. How is the hybrid wealth management model evolving, and how are digital solutions supporting both clients and RMs/advisers?
We use evolving tech to do better analytics. Large banks used to excel because they had a shock load of analysts that would organize information – they had large manpower.
Today, AI helps take away the mammoth task where manpower was needed – however, you need more skilled experts to handle the processed information. We excel because we adopt and bring in newer tech faster than larger financial institutions/banks, and we already have experts to make use of that info. The best talent isn’t just sitting in big banks anymore—it’s in boutique wealth management firms like ours, where expertise meets agility.
6. With the growing number of HNWIs in the UAE, what factors contribute to the success of family offices in the region?
We have been singularly focused on building our business. Today, we have 450+ families and individuals and we are present in seven countries (UAE, Singapore, UK, India, Australia, Mauritius, Cayman Islands) with 150+ employees and the right licenses with relevant regulators in each market. Our business has grown purely by word of mouth and through the trust we have built through our actions and performance. Our philosophy has always been for our work to speak for itself. Today, we are in a growth phase like never before and plan to enter new markets to cater to the needs of our clientele. This requires us to be more accessible and much more in the public eye.
7. How do you manage risk and ensure compliance?
Compliance is a top priority in our organization, receiving attention at the highest levels of management. Unlike many companies where founders transition into business-driven roles, one of our founders leads compliance, highlighting its critical role. We take a substantive approach, far beyond merely checking boxes, ensuring compliance drives the business. In our organization, compliance doesn’t report to the business—it works alongside it, embedded at every level to ensure we run a compliant and successful enterprise.
8. How do you envision the concept of Wealth 3.0, and what impact do you think it will have on future investments?
Call it what you will, but the direction is clear—technology will play an ever-growing role in delivering better financial advice, simply because it enables faster, more precise information processing.
9. How are regulatory technologies (RegTech) evolving alongside WealthTech to help firms navigate the complex regulatory landscape across MENA?
As RegTech continues to evolve alongside WealthTech, automation, AI-driven compliance, and digital identity verification could revolutionize the industry, ensuring faster, more secure, and regulation-compliant onboarding—without the bottlenecks of legacy systems.
10. How can boutique firms like Klay compete with global financial giants in the UAE?
We collaborate and we value add—we do not compete.
Over the last decade or so we have managed to carve a distinct niche for ourselves. In the complex world of finance, we have been trying to simplify things. We have done this in a few distinct ways. 1) We have been very selective with the number of people we work with so instead of increasing the number of clients we have concentrated on building scale with the clients we have. 2) We have ensured through investing in technology and a flat management structure agility that ensure fast decision making in an ever-changing and fluid world. 3) We have limited the number of clients each advisor handles to ensure personalised attention so that the unique needs of our clients are met. 4) We are constantly striving to move away from the traditional model of transaction-based fee to a fixed fee that removes any incentive for product pushing and instead rewards performance.
