Barclays Wealth expands Greater China coverage to Singapore
Barclays Wealth has appointed Carol Chen from UBS as its new market head for Greater China in a newly created role based out of Singapore.
Effective from December 13, Chen will spearhead the firm’s drive to expand its coverage of Greater China to the Lion City. She will be assisted by Michelle Ho, who joined last month from HSBC Private Bank as a senior Greater China banker based in Singapore.
The moves comes after the firm hired Januar Tjandra from Goldman Sachs as its new head of Greater China based in Hong Kong, in news previously broken by AsianInvestor.
Tjandra is set to join on December 5 based in Hong Kong and will be responsible for managing teams in both Hong Kong and Taiwan, understood to number around 30 bankers. Both Chen and Tjandra will report directly to Pakorn Boonya-kurkul, the firm’s recently installed head of North Asia.
Boonya-kurkul has outlined plans to double Greater China AUM within three years, in line with the firm’s ambitious growth agenda to double AUM in Asia to over $50 billion by 2014.
He says the bank is on the lookout for senior bankers in both Hong Kong and Singapore, with AsianInvestor having reported previously that Barclays Wealth is seeking to add 50 bankers by the end of 2012 to take the total number in both cities to 150.
“There is a compelling strategic rationale for establishing a Greater China team in Singapore to complement our established presence in Hong Kong,” notes Boonya-kurkul, saying it provides choice for Greater China clients to do business with a wealth manager based in either Asian hub.
Chen previously worked for UBS from 2007 based in Singapore, where she was a managing director and head of its Taiwan international desk in charge of a team of 13. Prior to that she worked for HSBC Private Bank covering the China client segment.
Ho formerly worked as a team manager at HSBC Private Bank responsible for a team of bankers with client coverage across Taiwan and China.
A spokesman for UBS in Hong Kong confirmed that Chen left last month and says the firm is looking for a replacement. A spokesperson for HSBC Private Bank did not respond by press time.
Further, Carole Cheung, a former colleague of Boonya-kurkul’s at HSBC, joined Barclays Wealth effective from May 3 this year as a senior client partner. She manages ultra-high-net-worth clients predominantly in North Asia, based out of Hong Kong.
Barclays Wealth is the private banking arm of the UK’s Barclays Bank and has about £170 billion ($268 billion) in assets under management globally, of which Asia-Pacific is understood to account for about 10%.