2019 was a year of big-ticket hiring, botched firings and more than a few twists in the tale in between. finews.asia compiles the definitive list of what – or who – was hot in 2019 and what was not.
HOT – Asian Tycoons
The opinion may label them «Crazy, Rich Asians» but the region’s 20 richest families together control over $450 billion. Six Hong Kong clans featured on the list which was compiled by «Bloomberg». The feuding Kwok brothers, whose Sun Hung Kai Properties dominates Hong Kong’s skyline with buildings such as the ICC in Kowloon and say they have lost $2 billion since the start of the Hong Kong protests, are still the richest family in Hong Kong.
Michael Kadoorie, whose father Elly Kadoorie came to Hong Kong in 1880, made the cut thanks to The Peninsula Hotel Group as well as CLP Holdings, electricity supplier to Kowloon as did Singapore’s Kwek family, owners of the Hong Leong Group.
HOT – The Pied Piper of Private Banking
Hamstrung by a partnership structure that is far less tolerant than fawning shareholders, Boris Collardi in 2019 decided, perhaps for the first time in his career, to stay away from the limelight.
However, the charismatic private banker still managed to lure away dozens of former colleagues from Julius Baer. When work on a mammoth new Pictet office in Zurich, away from its Genevan headquarters – and the daily oversight of partners – is complete, that number could well double.
NOT – Diversity
2019 was not a great year to be a woman in financial services. A female graduate trainee at UBS alleged she was raped by a colleague 20 years her senior. Despite leveling charges of sexual harassment, sexual discrimination and victimization as a result of whistleblowing, she was made to sit near her alleged rapist for three weeks before the story leaked to the press.
J.P. Morgan chief Jamie Dimon meanwhile emerged as a somewhat unlikely hero when he said he was «disgusted by racism and hate in any form» following reports staff discriminated against African-American clients at one of its branches in Arizona. This was after he dedicated $500 million to Advancing Cities, a project dedicated to increasing economic diversity in the world’s cities and the communities within them.
HOT – Sports
Steve Cohen, arguably the most successful hedge fund managers in history, has made a bid for the New York Mets, arguably one of the most famous baseball teams. If it succeeds, Cohen’s bid will catapult him into an elite cadre of asset managers who have a penchant for sports teams as investments rather than trophy assets.
Private equity firm Silver Lake bought a piece of the group that owns the Manchester City football team in late 2019 and CVC Capital Partners bought a minority stake in England’s premier rugby league having previously owned Formula One for ten years. Skeptics may discuss the purchases as vanity projects but the 32 leading European football clubs were valued at $41 billion at the start of 2019, an increase of 35 percent over three years according to a report by consultancy KPMG.
NOT – Office Romance
Relationships are complicated at best, but a love triangle in a professional setting can literally cost you millions. Mark Wiseman, a potential successor to CEO Larry Fink and the man at the helm of a $300 billion active equities fund at BlackRock was fired for failing to disclose an affair he had with a colleague at the world’s largest asset manager.
That Wiseman was married at the time to Blackrock Asset Management CEO Marcia Moffat probably did not help his case when he was negotiating an exit package
NOT – Softbank: Blindsided By Vision Fund
Softbank’s $100 billion technology-focused Vision Fund took more body-blows in 2019 than a prizefighter in a wrestling match. The near-collapse of its flagship investment in co-working group WeWork; the clamor for the fund to write-down its investment in ride-hailing apps Didi and Grab after a 35 percent collapse in Uber’s valuation.
Its controversial investment into teenager Ritesh Agarwal’s hospitality start-up Oyo; problems with its investment into Paytm, Asia’s biggest unicorn outside of China; have all led investors to finally question founder Masayoshi Son's legendary status.
Ironically, the very same investors saw no reason to question Son’s demigod status when he stood by Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, to whom Son owes as much as half of the Vision Fund’s capital, in the aftermath of journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder. But because investors tend to be much more concerned by plummeting valuations than they do plummeting ethics, it may be hard times ahead for Softbank.
