Assimilating plutocrats: Jeeves and Woosterovich RICH foreigners are drawn to London by the rule of law, a favourable tax regime, a cluster of big houses, vibrant culture, superb private schools and the presence of other rich foreigners. The country welcomes them: Britain handed out twice as many visas to rich investors last year as it did in 2009. Knight Frank, an estate agent, says 60% of prime London home sales in the year to April were to foreigners, with Russians alone accounting for 11%. Yet some of the capital's fruits are not readily accessible to even the wealthiest arrivals. As the population of plutocrats has grown, so has an industry dedicated to helping them get their money's worth. Clustered around Berkeley Square in central London, this crew consists of property finders, educational consultants, advisers on art and philanthropy, social secretaries and concierge services. The industry is largely unregulated and wildly variable - a mixture of professionals and slick chancers who have glommed onto a wealthy newcomer. One adviser reports that a friend was hired to create and run the private investment office of a wealthy Russian because the friend had been nice to the Russian's son-in-law. They operate independently but collaborate with other gatekeepers. Your art adviser may introduce you to a property finder, your lawyer to a concierge service. Will Petty of Bonas Macfarlane, an educational consultancy, says his firm is collaborating with Sotheby's Realty (a posh estate agent) and Coutts (a private bank) on a Moscow roadshow to promote a "one-stop shop" for rich folk looking to set up in Britain. Being able to afford private-school fees - which now exceed £30,000 ($46,600) a year for the top boarding schools - is not sufficient, says Mr Petty, whose firm charges £4,000-8,000 to advise parents. High demand means rich foreigners are on show to the school rather than the other way round, he explains. Advisers are often needed to navigate the schools" complex admissions criteria and schmooze their registrars. Art advisers help secure access to private sales. These have exploded: private sales at Christie's, an auction house, were worth £809m in 2011 - 44% more than the previous year. Nor can rich collectors simply walk into a gallery and pick up a work of art: the best pieces are sold before the show opens. Unless the collector is represented by a familiar face who can gain early access, he stands little chance of snagging his trophy. Houses are often sold privately, too. Most of the outfits serving the newly-arrived rich are small and discreet, with one big exception. Quintessentially was founded in 2000 by Ben Elliot, the Duchess of Cornwall's nephew. Its core business is a concierge service, which sorts out a wide range of problems from getting tickets to sold-out events to sourcing penguins for the birthday parties of hard-to-please children. There are now 32 sister businesses finding art, wine, staff and other necessities. For new members, Elite Level membership, a global service, starts at £12,000. Its headquarters are in a mansion in Portland Place. It has more than 1,500 employees and 60 offices worldwide. Old money often helps newly arrived money to penetrate high society. Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the Independent and the Evening Standard newspapers, employs Sabrina Guinness (of the brewing dynasty). Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea football club, and his partner Dasha Zhukova have used Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, whose family inhabits 15th-century Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, as an art adviser. Xenia Howard-Johnston, former chatelaine of Hampton Court in Herefordshire, is an adviser working on deals to sell a house in the hundreds of millions and the world's largest private jet. But not all plutocrats desire access to the British establishment. Whereas former generations of nouveaux riches assimilated fairly quickly, marrying native aristocrats and often entering politics, modern ones split their time between countries, acquiring British polish but not sending down deep roots. Their tastes, as moulded by all those advisers, can be rather uniform. Art advisers say their clients want only the best of each category. Buying broadly rather than deeply, they end up with remarkably similar collections. Many decorate their homes in a similar style. Christian and Nick Candy, beloved of many plutocrats, go in for leather on the walls, aggressive metal lighting and a palette of creams, greys and browns. The Candys" style is international, in that it lacks references to any particular culture or place. The new rich can even look similar. Josh Wood, hair colourist to the plutocrats, identifies an "international society" look, which he says is "about being effortless and seamless and quiet." Earlier rich immigrants were not at all quiet. Peter York, a writer on posh London, notes that a previous generation built shockingly ostentatious houses in Mayfair, with running water and lots of marble. These days there is a gold-standard tick-list: a house behind a gate (Belgravia for Italians, Chelsea for Russians), a Gerhard Richter for the wall, the kids in one of a handful of schools, the right portfolio of charities, a place in the country not too far from London. The new rich are not so much aping the British establishment and its ways as creating a new culture of their own.