Barclays Wealth adds Asia duo
Barclays Wealth has strengthened its team in Asia with two senior appointments to its private banking unit, as wealth managers build their businesses to take advantage of the region’s multi-trillion dollar market for serving high net worth clients.
Pheabe Chau has joined as head of investment specialists in Singapore, while Anny Au Yeung arrives as relationship manager in the group’s intermediaries business in Hong Kong.
Chau joins from RBS Coutts, where she was senior vice-president and investment adviser, responsible for setting up investment advisory services for the bank's private banking joint venture with Bank of China in Beijing and Shanghai, having previously spent three years with the group in Singapore.
She will report to Thomas Fekete, global head of investment specialists and the interim head of Barclays Wealth in Asia. She has about 20 years banking experience.
Anny Au Yeung starts as relationship manager in the offshore financial markets division, reporting to David Stanley, director and head of offshore financial markets.
Prior to joining Barclays Wealth, Yeung was a senior relationship manager with the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, covering the Hong Kong, Macau and South China markets.
Wealth managers have been competing fiercely for clients in the high-growth region. Standard Chartered's Singapore-based private bank plans to increase headcount by a third over the next three years, while Julius Baer, the Swiss pure-play private bank, has embarked on a hiring spree across Europe and Asia.
Deutsche Bank's private wealth unit in June revealed it would hire 200 employees in Asia this year and at least the same amount in 2009. Swiss lender Credit Suisse has also been tapping senior bankers in the region, many from rival UBS.
UBS, Citigroup and HSBC are the top three players in the Asian private banking market, where clients had assets of $8.4 trillion (€5.7 trillion) at the end of 2006, according to the latest report from Merrill Lynch and Capgemini.
--write to twilkinson@efinancialnews.com
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