Cathay Conning Asset Management hires Konyn as CEO

Cathay Conning Asset Management (CCAM), the investments affiliate of Taiwan’s Cathay Life Insurance, has hired Mark Konyn as chief executive officer, based in Hong Kong.

Konyn, the 50-year-old former Asia-Pacific chief executive at RCM, started at the firm’s Hong Kong office this week and is tasked with leading its strategic expansion across Asia.

CCAM, which has type 1, 4 and 9 licences in Hong Kong, offers a range of global asset management capabilities and has stated an intention to expand into Asian equities and fixed income.

In a previous interview with AsianInvestor after announcing he was leaving RCM last September, Konyn said he would look for a regional role based out of Hong Kong, adding that what stimulated him was developing and building businesses. His new role fits that bill.

For the five years previous to exiting RCM, a subsidiary of Allianz Global Investors, Konyn had been responsible for managing RCM’s Asia-Pacific investment business in Hong Kong, Japan and Australia. He had worked at RCM for 14 years in total.

Before that he was head of Asia regional institutional business with Fidelity Investments Hong Kong and represented Asia business interests in the Middle East.

He moved to Hong Kong in 1989 and served as director of business planning and investment with Prudential Assurance. Thereafter he was director and head of marketing for Indosuez Asia Investment Management. All in all he has been working and living in Asia for the past 22 years.

CCAM is a joint-venture between Taipei-based Cathay Financial and Conning & Co., a Hartford, Connecticut-based asset management company focused on the insurance industry. The JV was announced in June 2011.

As at December 31 Cathay Financial had over $166 billion in AUM. In recent years it has increased its business presence in Asia, including establishing life insurance, property and casualty insurance and banking operations in China and Vietnam.

Conning, with almost $88 billion in AUM globally, specialises in managing insurance assets. Most recently it was acquired by private equity fund Aquiline Capital Partners, which was established in 2005 by Jeffrey Greenberg, son of Maurice “Hank” Greenberg of AIG fame. As part of that deal, Cathay Financial also took a 9.9% stake in Conning.