Malaysia’s key gatekeepers: Woo Chui Chui, Gary Yong
As part of AsianInvestor’s project to identify the most influential fund selectors and distributors across the region, we have made a list of the key individuals in Malaysia when it comes to choosing cross-border products, listed alphabetically. This is the third of five stories covering the profiled gatekeepers.
For more background on our criteria for selection and the first profile (Chan Ai Mei of Affin Hwang Asset Management), click here. The other profiles published so far are of Danny Chang of Standard Chartered, Jeremy Ho of Citibank, Ho Seng Yee of RHB Asset Management and Ronnie Lim of UOB. The full list appears in the March issue of the magazine.
AsianInvestor published a list of the 25 most influential fund selectors across the markets of Hong Kong and Singapore in our November 2015 magazine issue and over the following weeks online. The final two and the full list appeared online on December 23. We will follow this with our selections for other markets in Asia in the coming months.
Woo Chui Chui
Head of wealth development
HSBC Malaysia
Woo Chui Chui has strong technical knowledge of funds thanks to her previous career as a portfolio manager at AmInvest. This experience makes her one of Malaysia’s most professional fund selectors due to her understanding of the value of investing over the long term.
Woo worked at local banks before joining HSBC Malaysia seven years ago. Fund managers say she is careful about adding new products and resists the temptation to allow fads to influence product selection.
HSBC is a major player in Malaysia’s fund market, offering a comprehensive range of local and offshore products. Woo works with HSBC’s regional investment team in Hong Kong, which develops the overall product offering and related services, and is backed by centralised due diligence on fund and manager research. Woo has a say in those regional deliberations and looks to make sure the shelf contains products suitable to Malaysian clients.
Gary Yong
Head of wealth management
CIMB
A veteran in Malaysia’s wealth management industry, Gary Yong began his career at Citibank in 2001. There he became lead salesman for CitiGold, alongside Jeremy Ho and Danny Chang (both of whom appear on this list).
Yong then worked at other local and international banks: Hong Leong Bank, ANZ, Royal Bank of Scotland and, finally, AmBank, where he also ran wealth management.
CIMB hired him last year, making him the new focus point on for asset managers seeking to access the bank’s wealthy clients.
This puts Yong back in the limelight. AmBank has a proprietary model, favouring its own asset management arm, AmInvest. CIMB has a broader footprint, but has been something of a closed shop to foreign fund managers. They are excited by Yong joining CIMB, as he is believed to have a mandate to broaden and upgrade the bank’s product offering. Pitch documents are already speeding his way.