Weekly roundup of people news, Feb 6

Indosuez WM names Asia head of investment solutions
Indosuez Wealth Management, the private banking arm of Credit Agricole, has hired Arjan de Boer as its new Asia head of markets and investment solutions based in Hong Kong, effective February 6.

He was most recently Asia head of integration for retail and private wealth at Australian bank ANZ, before departing in October, as the firm sold its retail and wealth management business to Singapore's DBS late last year.

De Boer had also served as head of private banking for North Asia at ANZ and before that held the same role at ABN Amro Private Banking.

At Indosuez he replaces Norbert Joue, who left the firm in June last year. Joue has since co-founded Thalia Capital in Singapore, a firm offering multi-family office services, according to his LinkedIn page.

De Boer is now responsible for Indosuez WM's products and services offering in Asia and oversees the regional investment strategy.

He reports to Antoine Candiotti, Hong Kong chief executive of Indosuez WM, and to the head of markets and investment solutions in Geneva.

De Boer's hire follows that of Pierre Masclet in January as the firm's Asia chief executive, a newly created role.

St James's Place to offer discretionary services in Asia
London-based St James’s Place aims to roll out services from discretionary fund manager Rowan Dartington across its Asian operations in the first half of this year, confirmed a spokeswoman for the wealth management firm.

St James’s Place is looking at the breadth of support it would need to give its partners in Hong Kong and Singapore, and at the level of local investment management expertise it would need to manage money locally, a spokesman told AsianInvestor in an email.

The firm expects to have no more than 10 employees across Hong Kong and Singapore for these purposes, he added. He did not say who would be heading the new offering in Asia.

Mike Gravestock, international partnership director at SJP, said the DFM offering would only be available via the firm’s existing advisers and partners in Asia.

It may prove challenging for SJP to build out the new offering, though, as discretionary services still seem to be a hard sell in the region. Even large, well established players in Asia, such as Deutsche Bank Wealth Management, have reported relatively minimal take-up in this area. And executives from other firms, such as Roger Bacon, Asia head of managed investments at Citi Private Bank, have said in the past that it is not easy for banks to build discretionary teams.

Asked whether SJP will launch a new unit in Dubai in 2017, amid long-running rumours that it had been looking to acquire a local IFA firm, Gravestock was quoted as saying that the company was “still very much in the research phase”. He described the UAE as the next logical place to expand.

HP Wealth Management boosts investment team
Singapore-based external asset manager HP Wealth Management has added two investment professionals to its team.

Jose Camacho joins as a private markets specialist, responsible for identifying investment opportunities in private equity and debt markets globally. He is co-founder of Touchstone Ventures, a direct investments advisory firm, which he launched in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at UBS Wealth Management, overseeing capital raising from family offices and ultra-high-net-worth investors globally.

This hire comes after HP WM, which is looking to reach $2 billion in assets under management, last year started looking at direct private-market investments, having previously relied on allocating to funds for such exposure, said Urs Brutsch, founder and managing partner in October.

Edwin Chan has also joined HP WM, as a senior portfolio manager. He was previously a fixed income investment counsellor at Bank of Singapore, OCBC’s private banking arm.

Meanwhile, Brutsch also told AsianInvestor in October that HP WM planned to cut the number of active funds on its platform and start investing in factor-based products.

StanChart appoints vice chairman for securities services
Standard Chartered has appointed Colin Brooks to the newly created role of vice chairman for securities services in its transaction banking division. Based in Singapore, he will act as a strategic adviser to the business and management team and a senior sponsor to clients.

Brooks (pictured right), who has been advising StanChart since late 2015, reports to Margaret Harwood-Jones, global head of securities services in transaction banking.

Brooks' role was created following a reorganisation of the securities services division in July, spokesman Andrew Low told AsianInvestor.

Brooks had joined StanChart in late 2015 for a project to determine the right development roadmap for the securities services business, said Low. Before that, Brooks had spent 26 years at HSBC, most recently as global head of sub-custody and clearing, a role he held for seven years until mid-2015.

The reorganisation of the securities services business – which has around 1,300 Asia-based staff – brought together the sales, product, service and technology and operations under the same management within transaction banking.

Harwood-Jones took up her current role at that point, having previously been head of investors and intermediaries in transaction banking, a role she retained responsibility for.

Legg Mason names Asia-based board members
US asset manager Legg Mason has appointed Tianqiao Chen and Robert Chiu of private investment firm Shanda Group to its board of directors, effective February 1.

Singapore-based Shanda is Legg Mason's largest shareholder, with a stake of around 10%.

Chen, chairman, chief executive and founder of Shanda and a technology entrepreneur, becomes vice chairman of the board and a member of the nominating and corporate governance committee.

Chiu is president of Shanda and has 25 years of international financial and technology experience.

Chen will focus on helping Legg Mason, which has around $710 billion under management, develop its technology innovation strategy and with business development and brand building in Asia, particularly in China.

Founded in 1999, Shanda makes investments across public market equity, fixed income and commodities, private equity and venture capital, and real estate. As well as its headquarters in Singapore, it has offices in Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Menlo Park (near San Francisco).

Other people news reported on AsianInvestor in the past week:

SSGA's Hon Cheung takes global role, tips huge flows from FX reserves