It will soon be that time of the year again when private wealth managers, in search of greener pastures, begin their migration.
The annual appraisals have been done and soon the bonus notes will be hitting the desks of wealth managers in Asia’s two hubs of Hong Kong and Singapore, or perhaps not in some cases.
While the vicissitudes of 2016 turned out well for some bankers whose clients were active, for others the year will have been challenging.
The usual suspects of Brexit and the ubiquitous Donald Trump made many ultra high net worth clients lay dormant last year, earning little revenue or booking much in the way of new assets with their wealth manager.
Maturing Market
Thanks to the natural maturing process, a deeper pool of talent and that thing called the «Global Financial Crisis», the annual migration is not as fluid as it was say ten years ago. Back then wealth managers in the two hubs were fiercely outbidding each other in an effort to gain critical mass buying individuals and teams in the fight for asset accumulation.
So aggressive were those times that several cases ended up in messy court actions.
Just under the private banking strata however, in the mass affluent wealth space, the fight for talent remains as fierce as it ever was and if gifted rainmakers, who are potentially the private bankers of tomorrow, are not rewarded they do not hang around.
The Players
Last year both Credit Suisse and Julius Baer added substantial manpower to their client facing wealth units in Hong Kong and Singapore. We should expect to see more of the same from those two.
finews.asia has heard from executive search firms that LGT is also keen on adding to their human capital in Asia despite their recent acquisition of ABN Amro private banking in the region.
Watch out too for more hires at J.Safra Sarasin and Standard Chartered under the leadership of Didier von Daeniken.
Culture Change
While many bankers are happy with a UBS or Bank of Singapore calling card others are looking to be more independent. The growth of Independent Asset Managers (IAM) continues apace in both wealth centres and is also taking root in regional wealth satellites like Bangkok, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur.
More and more bankers exasperated with internal politics, continual performance checks or a house view they no longer endorse are setting up on their own, joining family offices or IAM’s to carry on the work they enjoy without the background noise.
Watch This Space
As ever though you can expect to see numerous hires and lateral moves in the coming months in both of Asia’s private banking hot spots.
It is human nature to want to enhance knowledge, influence or just plain old financial reward.
Just don’t expect the clients to follow like lemmings.
