Not long ago, it wasn't unusual for folks at Fiduciary Trust Company International to lose a prospective client to a competitor who promised access to all the latest, hot alternative investments. But Fiduciary Trust, a custodial bank founded in 1931 by a group of lawyers looking for a safe haven for their clients' holdings, held the line, refusing to change its conservative philosophy and offer more fashionable—and aggressive—choices.

What a difference a market catastrophe makes. Now, like a bespectacled bookworm who suddenly becomes a prom queen, the bank is the belle of the ball. It's being flooded with assets from clients seeking the security of a reliable institution.

While the company won't reveal revenues or assets, officials there will say that Fiduciary Trust signed up three times as many clients as usual in September 2008 alone.

"Boring is the new sexy," says Gail Cohen, executive vice president and head of global wealth management at Fiduciary Trust.

Fiduciary Trust isn't alone. A handful of stick-in-the-mud private banks, wealth management firms, trust companies and others who didn't indulge in sub-prime loans or other toxic investments, are also experiencing a quantum leap in new clients looking for a safe home.

The roster includes Bessemer Trust, Bank of New York Mellon, J.P. Morgan, and a number of others. In many cases, they're also getting a bigger share of existing clients' portfolios. A few firms are even reporting that last year was a record year for new business.

"Some of these institutions are taking in so much money, they don't know what to do with it all," says Joseph Field, senior international partner at Withers Bergman, a New York-based law firm (and no relation to the author of this article).

STEADY AS SHE GOES

All those new accounts have helped some firms maintain a steady level of assets. The reason: while existing assets under management generally fell thanks to the market downturn, the new money has helped make up the difference.

Case in point: Bank of New York Mellon. Total private client assets "before all hell broke loose" were $162 billion, according to Joe Fernandez, managing director. Although that money took a hit (Fernandez won't say by how much), total assets are now $158 billion, because of the inflow of new accounts.

Or, take Bessemer. In 2008, the company added 17 new clients, up 65 percent from the year before, for a total of about $3.5 billion in new assets. Its total of $52 billion in assets is about the same as the year before. "That new business definitely offset market value declines," says Robert Elliott, senior managing director.

And, at J.P. Morgan Chase, the private bank "saw unprecedented inflows of new assets and new-client acquisition," says Joanne Johnson, head of U.S. trusts and estates for J.P. Morgan Private Bank. Net new asset flows in 2008 of about $80 billion represented a 25 percent increase from the year before; total client assets at the private bank are $417 billion.

The trend is by no means confined to the United States. At Pictet, a Geneva-based private bank, all areas of the firm's business—institutional asset management, private client services, and global custodian services—have seen an uptick, according to Dina De Angelo, director. Although she won't divulge numbers, she does say, "2008 was an amazing year for us."

Another Geneva-based private bank, Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch, reports that it has been turning down prospective clients who don't meet its standards. "We do not expect to take on clients without both parties getting to know each other over time and understanding each others' expectations," wrote Sally Tennant, CEO of Lombard Odier in London, in an email responding to our inquiries.