IN CONVERSATION, DANIEL Pinto and Julien Sevaux -- co-founders of London-based multifamily ofÞce Stanhope Capital -- can sound more like the audacious investment bankers they once were than the discreet private bankers they have become. "The world we work in is opaque, and our job is to lift the veil for our clients," says Pinto, Stanhope's chairman. For the founders, that means charging clients a maximum of just 1 percent of assets under management instead of the multiple layers of fees that a typical private bank takes -- and that can total as much as 3 percent of assets. This value-for-money proposition has enabled Pinto, 40, and Sevaux, 38, both Frenchmen, to grow their three-year-old Þrm from Þve founding investors -- including a large French media family and a substantial Belgian retailing dynasty -- to a client base of 30. The average account size is $70...