HSBC finds Pickerell replacement

HSBC Investments is transferring an executive from its central European business to Hong Kong to assume the role of CEO for Asia Pacific. Rudolf Apenbrink will move to Asia in mid-July.

Apenbrink succeeds Blair Pickerell, who left the firm last month to become managing director and head of the Asia-Pacific business at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. The newly created role incorporates traditional asset management with private equity, real estate, hedge funds and other alternative businesses.

Mark McCombe, CEO of HSBC group investment businesses (which includes HSBC Halbis Partners, the active-management/alternative investment arm), had conducted a review of both internal and external candidates. He told AsianInvestor when Pickerell resigned that a franchise such as HSBC Investments had plenty of prestige and opportunities, so that there would be plenty of eager applicants. He says one of ApenbrinkÆs priorities will be to develop the groupÆs institutional business throughout Asia Pacific.

Apenbrink is currently CEO of HSBC Investments in Germany. He is responsible for group investment businesses in Germany, Austria and Eastern Europe. HeÆs a member of the global management committee. He joined HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt in Germany in 1993 and has been leading HSBC Investments in Germany since 2003. He is being succeeded in Germany by Bernd Franke, currently CEO of Internationale Kapitalanlagegesellschaft mbH (INKA), a subsidiary of HSBC Trinkaus &
Burkhardt.