David Hopkins has every reason to celebrate. His company Fiduchi has just completed its rebrand from Osiris Management Services, in readiness to enter new markets and celebrate its 25th anniversary next year. All that - and he has just enjoyed his 55th birthday.
Even David Hopkins’ ten-year-old daughter agrees that the name Fiduchi is modern and cool. She approves of the changes, which have come about after a four-month project to rebrand.
Handing over one of Fiduchi's new purple eco-friendly reusable coffee mugs, Fiduchi’s managing director is amused that someone has even described the new name as ‘funky’. ‘A trust company funky? OK, if it works, I don't mind!
Since 3rd May this year, Fiduchi has been the name for Osiris Management Services Ltd. ‘We’d been looking at a rebrand for a while,’ David explains. ‘We created a new role by recruiting a head of marketing, and he’s done an exceptional job. The Osiris brand served us well for a long time, but when we started looking at how we wanted to drive the business forward into new markets, we found that the name might not be appropriate. Furthermore, as our business was not widely known and we were starting to see an increasing demand for our services because of our independence, we recognised that a rebrand would be very timely to help raise our profile more generally and to support our growth plans.
Fiduchi is a play on two words: “fiduciary” and "chi". Fiduciary is a term closely associated with our industry and has the meaning of trust and confidence. Whereas “chi”, derives from Asian cultures and refers to a person's life force or energy. We felt that the combination of these words helps convey our core values of being Inspiring, Independent and Trusted. The Asian influence was also important as we have a growing number of clients from the region and we see increasing potential for further growth from that part of the world.'
‘It's not just a name change either, we've invested a lot in our infrastructure, moved three years ago to new offices in Kensington Chambers, where we have the space for our expanding teams. We have invested heavily in software and hardware. One of the more significant challenges recently has been protecting our systems against cyber-attacks and data breaches. I'm delighted that we've gone live this month with an upgraded new platform, which means that by the end of this year we will be cyber essentials certified.
Born in Waterford Southern Ireland, David moved to Dublin when he was four. After school, he became an articled clerk and trained as a chartered accountant. He came to Jersey in 1990 when he was working with Price Waterhouse. Having stayed longer than just the ‘busy audit season’ he came over for, he moved into trust services. ‘In 1997 I left PW and moved to a small private trust company. I saw how it worked and thought I’d like to do this. I always wanted to work for myself, so following a shake of hands on the golf course with a former colleague from PW, Osiris was created. It started with just the two of us, and today we have 40 staff.’
‘Ninety per cent of our clients are international. It’s great that they're so cosmopolitan, but some would prefer if we also had an office in a different time zone, so where next? I’ve got some good relationships in the Middle East, Dubai particularly, and we’ve just signed a memorandum of understanding with an office there to set up a joint venture.’ In fact, Fiduchi has a new Middle East director starting in early July, and we are also looking at opening offices in Malta and the UK to give us greater geographical spread, partly driven by client demand.
David explained that with Brexit coming, Malta provides a presence within the EU that is very useful for servicing European-based clients whilst providing a useful hedge to mitigate the potential downside risks from a hard Brexit.
Fiduchi’s range of services covers Private Wealth (including Family Office – an increasingly important part of the business), Corporate Services (Real Estate, Capital Markets, Employee Services) and Yacht Management.
‘Yacht management is probably one of the more unusual parts of our business that is not replicated by many of our competitors,’ he said. ‘Essentially it’s the same type of service; just the assets are different. When we took it on, it really complemented what we did and introduced us to a whole new market. We have a fleet of well over 100 yachts at various stages of management which includes dealing with the payroll for over 500 members of specialist crew working all over the world.’
With the company’s 25th anniversary next year, Fiduchi is well placed to celebrate. David feels that all the pieces of the jigsaw are in place to continue building the business.
‘We have reinvented ourselves over the years - you have to - the industry changes, the rules change, you’ve got to stay relevant and contemporary. Right now one of our major strong points is independence, and we have always wanted to be independent and not have external influences imposed on us.
Having said that, we're not on our own. We're able to work in association with an international network of partners who can support the delivery of our services to clients wherever they are in the world.'
The rebrand has also given them a chance to attract new talent, including an Executive Director at senior board level to help drive the business development strategy. ‘Everyone we have recruited in the last 18 months has come via word of mouth. They’ve integrated well, and they like the changes that are taking place, in fact, the energy in the office is really positive!
‘Our business is not corporate-driven, it is successful because of our people and the relationships they build with our clients. If we get the people and relationships right, business success and profitability follows. That’s proven to be the case over the years, and that’s the way I want it to stay.’
David, who has four children aged between 10 and 22, loves Jersey, which is very much his home, and it’s clear that he is passionate about what he does.
‘I always have been - but I’m more excited than ever, and it’s great to have a team around me who feel that way too. I am touched by some of the positive feedback that clients give me - it means that we are headed in the right direction.
‘I still have a portfolio of my own even though I run the business. Meeting different people drives me. I want to do more of it!’
Read the CONNECT July working lunch interview here: https://fiduchi.co/2KLel2Z
