The brokerage and investment firm has brought in an experienced industry figure to head up its wealth management business.

Sri Lanka-based Asia Securities, the brokerage firm, has named Avancka Herat as head of wealth management. He also takes on the role of chief executive of the firm’s wealth management affiliate.

Herat joins from National Asset Management, where he had been CEO. The firm provides unit trusts and individual portfolio management services across equity and fixed income instruments. Previously, Herat was chief investment officer of Aegis Fund Management, which was Sri Lanka’s largest private asset management company with assets under management of LKR 93 billion ($600 million). Early in his career, he worked at oil industry leader Caltex (in Singapore and Sri Lanka) and the investment house Jardine Fleming (in Hong Kong and Sri Lanka) in research and investment-related roles.

To build Asia Securities’ wealth management business, Herat will be joined by Kanishka Perera (formerly Head of Asia Securities’ award-winning Research platform) who assumes the role of chief investment officer in the wealth arm.

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