Industry veteran Kwok quits StanChart Private Bank

Jun 21, 2011

Lionel Kwok has resigned as head of investment advisory for Northeast Asia at Standard Chartered Private Bank. His future destination is being speculated upon.

Veteran private banker Lionel Kwok has quit Standard Chartered Private Bank as head of investment advisory for Northeast Asia.

Kwok only joined the firm as a managing director in April last year, just after the firm hired Trevor Mak from Citi and Stella Kong from Sarasin-Rabo IM as relationship management heads for Hong Kong and China, respectively, in a drive to build its Northeast Asia business.

Kwok quit last Friday, although AsianInvestor could not determine his future destination by press time. A spokeswoman for Standard Chartered confirmed only that he had left and had no information on a replacement.

HSBC Private Bank recently lost Christopher Appleton, managing director and head of investment advisory product, AsianInvestor understands. However, phone calls and emails to HSBC Private Bank to determine if this would be Kwok's landing place went unreturned.

Appleton had been a principal of Faye Capital and formerly a managing director with Fox-Pitt Kelton. He started his career with the Asia-Pacific banking department of Kleinwort Benson in London in 1982, before moving to Tokyo two years later to work for Baring Securities and later BZW Securities Japan. He subsequently joined Salomon Smith Barney in Hong Kong.

Kwok is an industry veteran. In March last year he left Credit Suisse, where he was head of investments for North Asia, to take up the role with StanChart. He had been with the Swiss firm since 2007. He was also head of global markets at Fortis Bank in Hong Kong.

Standard Chartered re-entered the private banking arena a little over three years ago, having sold its international private banking business in 1996 to Swiss Bank Corp, which subsequently became part of UBS. However, StanChart came to regret the sale.