Weekly roundup of people news, June 16
INDOSUEZ WM TO BUY CIC'S ASIA PRIVATE BANK
Indosuez Wealth Management, the private banking arm of Credit Agricole, said today (June 16) that it had started exclusive discussions with French bank Credit Industriel et Commercial (CIC) to acquire the latter’s private banking activities in Singapore and Hong Kong.
The transaction is expected to be finalised by the end of the year, subject to regulatory approvals, added the bank in a statement.
Indosuez WM has appointed at least five senior bankers this year in Asia as part of its buildout in the region, as reported by AsianInvestor. Ezena Mok, Stanley Yeo and Radhika Jasuja have joined as senior directors in Hong Kong; and Prad Goswami and Lynda Leong have come in as senior directors in Singapore.
NATIXIS GAM NAMES ASIA HEAD AMID RESHUFFLE
Natixis Global Asset Management has named Fabrice Chemouny, formerly global head of institutional sales, as head of Asia Pacific, as part of several new leadership appointments.
Effective from September, he will transfer to Hong Kong to oversee distribution and business development and manage day-to-day relationships with investment affiliates in the region.
Tokyo-based Kinji Kato had been head of Asia until his role changed in January 2015 to head of North Asia, said a spokeswoman.
Meanwhile, Oliver Bilal joins Natixis Global AM as head of international sales and marketing, covering Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. He was previously head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa at UBS Asset Management.
A UBS spokeswoman said Bilal would not be replaced.
Chemouny reports to Bilal in relation to his sales and marketing role and to chief executive Jean Raby in relation to his role with Natixis GAM's affiliates in the region.
In addition, Beverly Bearden, executive vice president of global human resources, has been handed the additional role of deputy chief executive.
Chris Jackson, formerly international deputy CEO, is now chief international operations officer, overseeing the legal, compliance, finance, product and strategy functions in addition to his previous responsibilities.
Bearden, Bilal, Jackson all report to Raby.
ANBANG APPOINTS EUROPEAN CIO, RECEIVES BAN
China's embattled Anbang Insurance has named Nicolo Salsano as its first chief investment officer in Europe. Subject to regulatory approval, the appointment will be effective in September.
Salsano will join Anbang Belgium Holding (ABH), the group's European division, to focus on M&A and portfolio management.
Based in Brussels, he reports to the board of directors of ABH, a spokesperson said. He joins from Credit Suisse, where he was co-head for the German and Austrian investment banking department. Credit Suisse did not respond to request for comment.
Salsano’s appointment was announced last week.
Meanwhile, Anbang chairman Wu Xiaohui has reportedly been detained by the Chinese authorities as they investigate the insurer. He has been relinquished temporarily from his duties for personal reasons, said the firm in a statement dated June 14. It declined to provide further details.
In addition, the authorities have banned at least six major domestic banks from selling Anbang insurance products, Bloomberg reported on June 15. A spokesperson declined to confirm the accuracy of the report, saying only that the insurer could still sell products through banks.
BNY MELLON REPLACES ASIA HEAD OF ASSET SERVICING
BNY Mellon has lured Rohan Singh from Northern Trust to become Asia-Pacific head of asset servicing, a role that has been vacant since Michael Chan left it in August 2016.
Francis Braeckevelt has held the post on an interim basis in addition to his role of Asia-Pacific chief operating officer for asset servicing.
Singh will assume the role in Singapore on June 27, reporting to Samir Pandiri, chief executive of asset servicing.
He was most recently Singapore-based head of Southeast Asia for Northern Trust, where he has also led the Australasia region as well as sales for Asia Pacific.
William Mak, Asia-Pacific head of Northern Trust, will assume Singh's responsibilities in the interim, a spokeswoman told AsianInvestor by email.
Singh previously held several asset servicing positions at Citi, including head of global custody sales for South Asia. He began his career at State Street, where he worked for seven years.
BNP PARIBAS AM POACHES INDIA CIO
BNP Paribas Mutual Fund, the Indian arm of BNP Paribas Asset Management, has hired Ritesh Jain as chief investment officer, effective June 15.
Jain reports to Anand Shah, deputy chief executive and head of investments, who was also CIO before the appointment.
Jain was previously CIO at Tata Mutual Fund based in Mumbai. Tata couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.
EX-HSBC EXEC BANNED FOR EIGHT MONTHS IN HK
Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has banned Li Bo, a former employee of HSBC, from re-entering the industry for eight months from June 9, 2017 to February 8, 2018 for breaching its code of conduct.
An SFC investigation found that from April 2014 to September 2015 Li breached HSBC’s staff personal trading policy by failing to disclose to his employer his personal trading account and beneficial interests in the securities accounts of his friend. He also failed to obtain prior approval for his securities trading transactions in his friend’s accounts, which meant HSBC could not monitor his trading activities.
Li had been licensed to conduct type 1 (dealing in securities), type 4 (advising on securities) and type 6 (advising on corporate finance) activities in Hong Kong. He is currently neither registered with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority nor licensed by the SFC.
In deciding the penalty, the regulator took into account that Li cooperated by consenting to the disciplinary action and was remorseful for his conduct.
DEUTSCHE WM PLANS ASIA HIRING SPREE
Deutsche Bank Wealth Management said this week that it planned to hire around 50 new client-facing employees covering high-net-worth individuals in Asia this year. That number accounts for about half of the total additional hires the bank is targeting worldwide.
This comes after the bank has suffered a stream of senior departures in the region in the past year as it has been handed several fines by regulators.
The rest of the planned hires will include relationship managers covering entrepreneurs in the US and ultra-high-net-worth clients in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, the bank said in a statement.
CHINA LIFE GROUP APPOINTS NEW PRESIDENT
China Life Insurance (Group) has named Yuan Changqing, former chief board supervisor at the Agricultural Bank of China, president. The appointment was announced on June 6, reported Chinese publication Caijing.
Yuan succeeded Miao Jianmin, who left China Life in early April to become president of People's Insurance Company (Group) of China.
China Life didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
OLD MUTUAL HIRES EM EQUITY TEAM
Old Mutual Global Investors, part of the UK's Old Mutual Wealth, has hired a team to run its global emerging markets equity fund, which is being moved in-house.
Nick Payne, Salman Siddiqui and Liz Fernandes joined on June 5 from Nomura Asset Management, where they worked for three years, most recently on the Nomura Global Emerging Markets Equity Fund. The new EM equity desk is based in London.
Payne leads the team and reports to OMGI’s chief executive, Richard Buxton.
The $244.6 million fund is currently managed by Fisher Asset Management, but will be insourced on July 21.
OMGI intends to reduce the fund’s annual management fee, dependent on the share class. For example, the charge on the clean share class will fall from 0.9% to 0.75% The plan is also to reduce the fund's holdings to around 30-40 stocks from 80 as of May 31, said a spokeswoman.
JUPITER ADDS TWO EM DEBT ANALYSTS
Jupiter Asset Management has added two emerging market debt analysts to support the firm's new EM debt (EMD) strategy, led by Alejandro Arevalo.
Nachu Chockalingam joined on June 5 from the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, where she was an emerging market corporates portfolio Manager. Before that she spent 12 years at JP Morgan, most recently as an EM analyst.
Reza Karim joined Jupiter in early May from Henderson Global Investors, where he was an EM research analyst for two years covering corporate and sovereign credit in the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region. He was previously at HSBC as an EM credit research associate.
Both will report to Hilary Blandy, Jupiter’s head of credit research.
Other people news reported on AsianInvestor in the past week:
Bosera suffers Hong Kong sales staff exodus