Spain’s Abante Asesores is set to open a new office in Málaga and has appointed Rafael Romero to be its director.
Abante Asesores’ Málaga office is the second unit the firm has in Andalusia (Southern Spain) and raises to six the number of offices it has across Spain.
Since 2014 the firm has had an office in Sevilla, which is formed by a team of seven professionals and it is likely to continue growing in the coming months, according to the firm.
With the new office Abante aims at achieving around €100m of assets under management in Malaga and some €300m of AUM in Andalusia.
Romero joins Abante from Unicorp Patrimonio (belonging to Unicaja Banco Group) where he worked for the past 17 years as the firm’s investment director and was also the main fund manager of the Unicorp Selección range of funds.
Prior to his time serving at Unicorp Patrimonio, Romero worked being responsible for the private banking area of Credit Lyonnais in Spain and also at Caja Duero.
Romero said: “ I am very grateful to Unicorp – my house during the past 17 years – for everything that has allowed me to develop during my tenure with them. From now on, I will work focusing on financial advisory services with Abante Asesores, given its independence, values, and its business model that focuses on clients. I also believe Abante offers a very attractive opportunity for its employees since it gives them the possibility to become partners.”
Abante’s president Santiago Satrústegui added: “Although we took into account the potential offered by the area of Málaga, it was more important to us who would be leading the new office there. In this respect, we consider Rafael Romero the ideal candidate given his career and reputation in the area as well as his knowledge of Abante, as he has been following closely our project since the firm’s launch in 2001.”
Abante offers financial advisory services to over 7,000 clients and manages €3.2bn of assets under management, having increased them considerably over the past five years when the firm was managing €1bn of AUM from 3,000 clients.
