Quintet is naming a former UBS top executive who went on to run Coutts as its new chairman, finews.asia has learned. The move is a bid to upgrade and diversify the wealth manager's oversight as it embarks on a reinvention.
Luxembourg-based Quintet is poised to elect Rory Tapner as its chairman, a person familiar with the move told finews.asia. He replaces Jan Maarten de Jong, a Dutch banker who has presided Quintet since 2015. A spokesman for Quintet, owned by Qatar's ruling al-Thani family, didn't comment.
The 60-year-old Tapner is a banking veteran: he ran UBS' business in Asia-Pacific until the financial crisis of 2008/09, then went on to run Coutts & Co., the Queen's banker, for five years. The British banker was quietly elected to chair Brown Shipley, a regional U.K. wealth manager owned by Quintet, last June.
A Host of UBS Veterans
Tapner isn't the only heavyweight poised to join: Quintet is also poaching Gabriel Castello, a person familiar with the matter said separately. Castello is a UBS wealth veteran who held key roles including running its business with wealthy French clients, spearheading a European onshore initiative, and catering to Latin America's ultra-wealthy.
It isn't clear in what role Castello, currently a vice-chairman in UBS' $2.4 trillion private bank, is being hired. He and Tapner are part of a raft of UBS bankers with ties to Juerg Zeltner and Jakob Stott, who spearheaded the reinvention of Quintet, or KBL as the 81.5 billion euro ($84 billion) wealth manager was previously known.
Loss After Growth Push
Under Stott, the bank is pushing ahead following Zeltner's sudden death in March, armed with 112 million euros from the al-Thanis for its expansion. Quintet, which posted a loss last year as a result of the redo, recently won approval to launch its Swiss office following the acquisition of Bank am Bellevue.
The deal gives Quintet entrée into Switzerland as well as 1.6 billion Swiss francs ($1.7 billion) in assets and roughly half its 40 staff. The Swiss unit enlisted ex-Rothschild private bank overseer Bruno Pfister as its chairman.
