Weekly roundup of people moves, April 17
HK chief exits Société Générale Private Banking
The Asian private banking arm of Société Générale – recently acquired by Singapore’s DBS for $220 million – has confirmed the departure of its Hong Kong chief executive, Alex Fung. He left the bank for personal reasons, says a spokeswoman. He had been with the firm since 1997.
The bank is in the process of appointing a replacement, subject to relevant regulatory approvals, she adds. In the meantime, Olivier Gougeon, Asia CEO at SG PB, is running the business, including overseeing activities in Hong Kong.
When the acquisition was announced, Tan Su-Shan, DBS’s head of wealth management and consumer banking, said she expected most of the SG PB’s 330 Asia staff, including senior executives, to move to the new entity.
BNY Mellon IM hires Asia strategist
US-based BNY Mellon Investment Management last month hired Simon Cox from The Economist, where he was a journalist, as Asia-Pacific investment strategist. Based in Hong Kong, he reports to Jack Malvey, chief global market strategist for investment management in New York.
BNY Mellon IM had hired Paul Schulte in a newly created position as Asia-Pacific head of investment strategy in August 2012 from China Construction Bank International Securities. But he left after a matter of weeks for his native US for personal reasons.
The US asset management and asset servicing firm has seen other moves of late.
It emerged in March that Navin Suri, Asia head of intermediary distribution, and Eric Fu, his number two, have moved on. Fu is now Hong Kong CEO for HSBC Securities Services, while AsianInvestor could not ascertain Suri’s next move. Richard Collis has since been named as Suri’s replacement.
Despite this, a spokeswoman says that the business in Asia Pacific has been expanding for the past two years, including obtaining licences in Singapore and Hong Kong last year and is aiming to build “local manufacturing capabilities and hiring industry veterans to lead the growth effort”.
The Asia-Pacific region accounts for around 6% ($94 billion) of BNY Mellon IM’s $1.6 trillion in global AUM.
UBS appoints new HK CEO for wealth arm
Swiss bank UBS Wealth Management has promoted Amy Lo to CEO for Hong Kong as of April 15, as her predecessor Allen Lo is retiring.
Amy Lo was previously Asia-Pacific head of the ultra-high-net-worth segment, a role she took up in January 2011. She was also regional head of global family office and joined the Swiss bank in 1995.
She will continue to report to Kathryn Shih, Asia-Pacific CEO of UBS WM.
Allen Lo will have his responsibilities as deputy CEO of wealth management for Asia Pacific assumed by Edmund Koh, CEO of wealth management for Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific. Allen is expected to continue as an adviser.
Citi combines markets and securities services roles
Citi has appointed Patrick Dewilde as Asia-Pacific head of markets and securities services, a unit created recently by the merger of the securities and fund services (SFS) and markets divisions. He reports to Stephen Bird, Asia-Pacific CEO, and Paco Ybarra, global head of markets and securities services.
Once the appointment is approved, Dewilde will relocate to Singapore from London, where he is global head of local markets risk treasury and markets head for Southeast Africa, Turkey and Israel.
The previous Asia head of SFS, David Russell, is now Asia head of investor services. Nadir Mahmud, previously Asia-Pacific markets head, was promoted in February to global head of foreign exchange and transferred to London from Singapore.
The various Asia business heads of the markets divisions – such as fixed income, currencies and commodities, and securitised products – and the SFS businesses will now report to Dewilde.
Dewilde joined Citi in 1983 and did stints as treasury head and head of trading and investment banking in various countries both within and outside Asia.
BNY Mellon names Asia sales head for collateral services
BNY Mellon has appointed Filippo Santilli as Asia-Pacific head of sales and relationship management for its global collateral services business.
In the newly created role in Hong Kong, he reports to Jonathan Spirgel, executive vice president of global collateral services in New York, and to Dominick Falco, head of global collateral services for Asia Pacific.
Having joined the US custodian in 2009 from Lehman Brothers Asset Management, Santilli was most recently managing director of liquidity services for the region.
Due to growing opportunities to move collateral across borders, BNY Mellon has expanded its global collateral services team and invested in collateral services infrastructure to capture more cross-border opportunities from broker-dealers. The global collateral services division was set up in June 2012.
Henderson names head of emerging market credit
UK-based fund house Henderson Global Investors has hired Steve Drew as head of emerging market credit from Thames River Capital.
London-based Drew will work alongside Stephen Thariyan, global head of credit, and Phil Apel, head of fixed income, in building out the EM credit team.
At Thames River Capital, Drew was head of global and emerging credit, managing around £1.5 billion ($2.4 billion), of which around £750 million was invested in EM credit.
Henderson had £17.28 billion in fixed income AUM as of end-2013.
Wealth-X names new business development
Wealth management research firm Wealth-X has appointed Jean-Luc Gustave as vice president of business development for the luxury segment, based in Hong Kong.
Gustave joins from data provider Thomson Reuters, where he was managing director for Northeast Asia. Before that, he was country manager of France for World-Check, a provider of risk prevention services owned by Thomson Reuters.
Headhunter Wellesley hires infrastructure head
Search firm Wellesley Partners has appointed Keir Macintosh as managing director to lead the infrastructure practice in Hong Kong. He will also provide executive search consulting to clients across all areas of financial services in Asia Pacific.
Macintosh joined in February from rival firm Heidrick & Struggles, where he was head of the Asia-Pacific infrastructure practice.
Other moves reported on AsianInvestor.net this week:
Neuberger Berman starts Asia retail buildout
Old Mutual boosts sales team, eyes retail market