Smith & Williamson - About Us

Smith & Williamson was founded in 1881. Since then, we have managed the financial affairs of private clients and their business interests, combining an independent firm of chartered accountants with an investment management and private banking house.

Smith & Williamson Securities was incorporated in 1970. The name was changed to Smith & Williamson Investment Management Limited in 1997. In December 2002, we merged with NCL (Securities) Limited, further strengthening our position as one of the UK's leading independently owned financial advisory groups.

Today, the Smith & Williamson Group has developed further and our investment management business has £10.7 billion of funds under management*. We have circa 1400 staff based in offices in the UK and Ireland, of which about one third work in the investment management and banking division. As a professional and financial services group we have a diverse service offering and recognise that our clients' needs vary enormously. Our company-wide values hold true whether our services are delivered from one of our regional offices, our HQ in London, or alongside our international partners in 100 countries around the world**.

With Smith & Williamson’s history as a leading provider of financial advisory services to private individuals, and as winner of the STEP Private Client Awards 2009/10 and 2010/11 (Winner of Investment House of the Year) and also as winner of the Best Growth Wealth Manager at the Investors Chronicle and FT Wealth Management Awards 2010 and 2011 as well as winning the Citywire Wealth Management Award 2010 for Large Group of the Year, we have a strong awareness of the needs of private client fund managers and the risk appetites of their clients. We have also been awarded the “Best Smaller Group” award in the Money Observer 2010 Fund Awards for our boutique fund management business. This was awarded “in recognition of consistently superior risk adjusted performance”. In 2011 were again recognised in the Money Observer Fund Awards and were highly commended in the "Best Smaller Group" category. We are also delighted to have been nominated for the Fund Manager of the Year Awards 2011 in the Specialist Group of the year category.

Although well-known to our private client audience, the Smith & Williamson fund range has been a ‘best kept secret’ for many years. So, in 2009, the decision was made to introduce the wider intermediary market to our approach to asset management as it should be.


The value of investments can go down as well as up and investors may not receive back the original amount invested. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.


*AUM as at 28/04/2011

**Smith & Williamson Limited is a UK member of Nexia International www.nexia.com one of the longest established global networks of independent accounting and consulting firms.