Weekly roundup of people moves, Mar 28
Fortune SG gets new institutional head
Lyxor Asset Management has appointed Alexandre Werno as executive vice general manager of Fortune SG Fund Management, where he will run institutional sales and risk control. He succeeds Gilbert Tse, who was named Asia head of Lyxor in March last year.
Werno was previously senior adviser to Helen Huang Xiaoyi, general manager of Fortune SG, to whom he also now reports.
Forune SG is a Shanghai-based joint venture owned 51% by China’s Baosteel Group, and 49% by Lyxor, part of France’s Société Générale. It also has offices in Beijing, Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
“In the course of 2014, Fortune SG will diversify its offer and develop new sectoral equity funds and index-linked products, propose cross-border innovative solutions and alternative businesses both in fund of hedge funds and alternative managed accounts,” Lyxor says.
Mizuho names new asset management CEO
Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group has shuffled the bosses of its asset management arm, amid a routine rotation of senior roles.
Katsunobu Motohashi will be promoted to from deputy head of asset management to head of the department, replacing Akira Sugano.
Sugano, currently head of international banking and asset management, will become head of strategic planning and management control. His new role will straddle asset management, international banking and investment banking.
Yoshihito Bando, general manager of pension business planning department, will succeed Motohashi as deputy head of AM.
Northern Trust creates new Australia/New Zealand role
Asset management and servicing group Northern Trust has named Peter Jordan as head of global fund services for Australia and New Zealand.
This is a newly created role as a result of the company’s growth in the region, says a spokeswoman. Jordan’s responsibilities had previously fallen under the remit of Rohan Singh, country head of Australia and New Zealand.
Jordan reports to Singh and Peter Cherecwich, head of global fund services.
Earlier this year Jordan relocated to Melbourne from London, where he was chief administration officer for global fund services and looked after Northern Trust’s global institutional client relationships. He joined the firm in 1992.
Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing region for Northern Trust, with assets under custody rising at an annual rate of 26% and assets under management rising by 15% annually, from 2008 through 2013, says Teresa Parker, Asia-Pacific head of Northern Trust.
The group has also been expanding elsewhere in the region, having opened a Malaysia office in February, and it is setting up an operations centre in the Philippines.
MAS shuffles senior officials
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has announced a reshuffle of its senior officials that will take effect on April 1.
Foo-Yap Siew-Hong, currently assistant managing director for special projects in the managing director’s office, is due to retire on March 31 after 39 years at the city-state’s regulator and de facto central bank. It is understood that she will not be replaced.
Foo-Yap has “made a significant impact across a variety of MAS’ functions and has helped to lay the foundation for MAS’ early approach to banking supervision, formulated the tools and techniques for risk-based supervision, and groomed a generation of MAS bank supervisors”, says Ravi Menon, managing director of MAS.
In addition, Lee Chuan-Teck, currently assistant managing director for capital markets, will be seconded to the ministry of transport as deputy secretary for land and corporate.
Teck will be replaced by Lee Boon-Ngiap, who will relinquish his current position as assistant managing director for banking and insurance, to be succeeded by Chua Kim-Leng, currently executive director for banking.
EY hires regulatory head for financial services
EY has appointed Judy Vas as regulatory leader for financial services for Asia Pacific based in Hong Kong, in what the consulting firm says is a newly created role, alongside similar heads in other markets.
Before joining EY, Vas had worked at Goldman Sachs for 16 years, most recently as head of regulatory affairs for Asia ex-Japan. She left the bank in September last year. She has also worked at Bear Stearns and Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission.
It is understood that Goldman Sachs has not replaced her. The bank declined to comment.
Deutsche appoints global head of renminbi services
Deutsche Bank has named Evan Goldstein as global head of renminbi services based in Hong Kong. The role was created due to fast-growing demand for the bank’s renminbi products and services, says a spokeswoman.
He started this month and reports to Michael Ormaechea, co-head of corporate banking and securities for Asia Pacific, and Lisa Robins, Asia-Pacific head of global transaction banking.
Goldstein joins from Standard Chartered, where he was most recently Asia head of product management for financial institutions within the transaction banking division. He was with the emerging markets-focused bank for six years. Before that, he spent 13 years at JP Morgan.
Standard Chartered did not respond to AsianInvestor enquiries on whether Goldstein had been or would be replaced.
Among the users of Deutsche’s RMB services are fund houses looking to invest into China through the qualified foreign institutional investor and the renminbi qualified foreign institutional investor schemes.
The German bank also services outbound investments from Chinese fund houses looking to invest in foreign securities through the qualified domestic institutional investor scheme.