Former England football captain Alan Shearer has begun an unlikely new career in the city of London where Swiss banking giant UBS’s private bank has hired him to help recruit clients among Britian’s high-earning sports stars.
In his promotional role, Shearer will refer Premier League soccer players to the bank, bank officials said, declining to say how much the 31-year-old Newcastle striker would be paid.
Amid record football transfer fees in Europe, a growing number of banks have set up specialist teams devoted to managing the wealth of soccer and other sports professionals.
Among them are Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse Private Banking of Switzerland's Credit Suisse group and Coutts, owned by Royal Bank of Scotland.
According to a recent industry study, top European sports stars hold an estimated $60 billion in private wealth and their wallets are growing at an average annual rate of 18 per cent despite sinking equity markets.
Sports multimillionaires are prime targets for private banks because many are in their teens or 20s and booking them early can mean many years of annual management fees, often in the range of one to 1.5 per cent, which grow as assets expand.