Wealth Management comprises businesses that directly serve the growing wealth management needs of affluent and high net worth clients in Canada, the U.S. and outside North America, and businesses that provide asset management and trust products through RBC and external partners. We are a market leader in Canadian wealth and asset management, and have strong and growing businesses in the U.S. and internationally. Our 3,300 financial consultants, advisors, private bankers and trust officers provide investment advisory and discretionary services, banking, credit and estate and trust services to affluent and high net worth clients. We have a network of 300 offices in 20 countries around the world.

 
  Key highlights
•  We realigned our businesses in February 2007 to create a separate Wealth Management segment to focus on extending our leadership position in Canada and aggressively growing in the U.S. and international markets.
•  In 2007 we continued to increase our proportion of fee-based revenue, to 53 per cent of all Wealth Management revenue from 50 per cent in 2006.
•  The fastest growing segment in our Canadian wealth management business continues to be high net worth clients (households with more than $1 million in investable assets).
•  We continued to lead the Canadian mutual fund industry in both sales and performance, outpacing the industry in net sales of long-term funds for the last 16 consecutive calendar quarters. By continuing to leverage our broad retail distribution network in Canada and by expanding our third-party distribution, our mutual fund assets under management increased by $13.1 billion, or 19 per cent, over the prior year.
•  We continued to build scale in the U.S. and internationally for future growth through organic expansion and acquisitions. We offered client solutions from across our businesses including extending more than US$1 billion in credit provided by international wealth management to high net worth clients of our U.S. wealth management business.
•  We continued to lead the Canadian asset management industry in the development of innovative products. We were the first major Canadian bank to launch a socially responsible mutual fund family through our partnership with Jantzi Research Inc. and the first Canadian financial institution to introduce mutual funds with reduced management fees for self-directed investors.
   
  Achievements in 2007
•  We were the first in the Canadian full service brokerage industry to surpass $150 billion in client assets under administration through our Canadian full service broker.
•  We continued to lead the Canadian mutual fund industry in net sales, more than 75 per cent ahead of the second-place fund company.
•  We received the Lipper Award for the “Best Overall Fund Group” in Canada in recognition of our strong investment performance.
•  We acquired J.B. Hanauer & Co., a financial services firm specializing in retail fixed income and wealth management services, expanding our presence in strategic and desirable New Jersey, Florida and Pennsylvania markets.
•  We continued to expand our international wealth management business focused on high net worth clients, opening offices in several cities, including Mexico City, Beijing and Santiago.
   
  2008 and beyond
•  We will continue extending our lead in the Canadian wealth and asset management markets.
•  We will pursue strong organic and acquisitive growth in our existing U.S. wealth management businesses that serve individual clients and advisors.
•  We will focus on expanding our high net worth international wealth management business in select markets as well as through “bolt-on” acquisitions to complement our existing operations.
• We plan to expand our asset management business globally, initially through acquisitions with a focus on U.S. opportunities.
• We will work to continue attracting and retaining experienced advisors, private bankers and other client facing professionals across all our businesses.