WealthBriefing provides a round-up of all the major people moves and employment trends in the global wealth management sector for the month ...

WealthBriefing provides a round-up of all the major people moves and employment trends in the global wealth management sector for the month of February 2006.

Trends
Last month WealthBriefing launched its sister site WEALTHCAREERS, which is the first online recruitment site dedicated to wealth management.

Study after study has shown that the demand for wealth management positions is at an all time high. WEALTHCAREERS is responding to that demand and will cater to the needs of both the wealth management professional and the recruiters who are eager to attract them.

Hosted exclusively on WealthBriefing, WEALTHCAREERS provides a fully searchable database of wealth management jobs from both banks and search firms, as well as news, views and analysis on wealth management salaries and career trends.

Professionals can register and apply online in strict confidence, as well as receiving email alerts based on “search agents” of their chosen criteria.

Recruiters can post and edit jobs online to reach the world’s largest community of wealth management professionals.

Please take a look at WEALTHCAREERS at www.wealthcareers.com, or follow the links on WealthBriefing

Executive Moves
Bank Sarasin has appointment Joachim Strahle as its new chief executive. Mr Strahle joins from Credit Suisse, where he was regional head for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Russia, and a member of the private banking management committee. Sarasin said Mr Strahle will take up his new position in September.

The bank also said that the executive management of its private and institutional division has been run by Eric Sarasin and Marco Weber since the beginning of 2006. They took over from Peter Merian, the current chief executive of the Sarasin, who will be leaving the bank in September. The bank also said that Conrad Schwyzer, member of the group executive board, will look after the bank’s key clients and will report directly to the chief executive. On an interim basis, he will also continue to head private banking in Zurich.

Credit Suisse has restructured its international private banking operations in the wake of the departure of Joachim Straehle – the former head of private banking for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Russia – to Bank Sarasin. Two new regions, private banking Asia-Pacific and private banking Europe, Middle East and Africa, have been created. These will stand alongside the existing regional divisions for Switzerland and the Americas.

The Zurich-based bank said Alois Battig, who previously headed private banking for Europe and Africa, will head the EMEA private banking business. Credit Suisse Investment Partners, the bank's private banking arm catering to ultra high net worth clients, will become part of private banking EMEA, said Credit Suisse.

The firm has yet to appoint the head of private banking for Asia Pacific. In the interim, Fidelis Goetz, head of private banking North Asia, and Didier von Daeniken, head of private banking South East Asia, will co-head the regional division, according to Credit Suisse. Private banking Switzerland remains under Ulrich Koerner. Credit Suisse continues to look for a head for its private banking business in the Americas.

Separately, Credit Suisse has appointed Luigi de Vecchi and Tino Rampazzi as co-country managers for Credit Suisse Italy. Mr Vecchi and Mr Rampazzi will jointly assume this role in addition to their current responsibilities as head of Italian investment banking and head of private banking in Italy, respectively, according to Credit Suisse. The bank also announced the appointment of Francesco de Ferrari as chief operating officer for Italy.

Credit Suisse has also appointed Francois Roussely as chief executive of the bank’s business in France. Mr Roussely was previously chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston in France and vice chairman of CSFB in Europe. The announcement was made in response to the current group integrating. The current head of private banking in France, Herve de Montlivault, was also confirmed in his position. Mr de Montlivault joined Credit Suisse last March from JP Morgan Private Bank in France. Christophe Lanne has also been named chief operating officer of the Swiss bank in France. He was previously a vice president in Credit Suisse’s investment banking business in Europe.

Finally, Credit Suisse has hired the former England international Rugby Union star, Austin Healey, to be a personal banker. Mr Healey is believed to be working in the private banking side of Credit Suisse and is expected to use his contacts in the world of sport to attract clients.

Citigroup Private Bank has appointed Achille D’Antoni as its new head of private banking for Italy. Mr D’Antoni replaces Luca Toniutti, who left around nine months ago to join Pictet. During the interim period, Citigroup Private Bank in Italy was jointly managed by Filippo Arena and Francesco Rocciolo. Both will now report in to Mr D’Antoni. Mr D’Antoni was previously Citigroup’s consumer business manager for Italy. That position is now to be led by Alan Duffell, who was previously head of Citibank’s Service Centre in Barcelona.

German private bank Sal Oppenheim has appointed Holger Sepp as its new chief operating officer for its asset management business, Oppenheim Kapitalanlagegesellschaft. Dr Sepp joins from the Deka Group in Frankfurt, where he spent several years as head of company development, according to a statement from Sal Oppenheim.

HSBC Private Bank’s asset management subsidiary in France, Louvre Gestion, has hired Jean-Michel Starck as deputy managing director and head of fixed income management. Mr Starck joins from DWS Investments, where he was chief investment officer. He will report to Philippe Lebeau, chief executive of Louvre Gestion. His appointment follows that of Kathrine Blunden, who joined Lourve Gestion at the beginning of the year as an equity fund manager. Ms Blunden joins from Montpensier Finance, which she founded in 1998.

Kredietbank Luxembourg, the private banking business of KBC Bank, has hired Olivier Roy to be deputy general manager of its business in France. Mr Roy will be based in Paris. Mr Roy joins from Banque de Neuflize, a French private bank owned by ABN Amro, where he was most recently director of private clients.

JP Morgan Private Bank in London has hired Samir Sayeed from Citigroup Private Bank to head up the bank’s international Indian business. The private bank has also hired Paul Knox from Ernst & Young. Mr Knox will be a wealth advisor to UK clients and report to Olivier de Givenchy, head of the private bank in the UK. Mr Sayeed will report to Emilio Saracho, the new head of the private bank for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Michael Fung, head of the private bank for Asia. He will be based in London. Mr Sayeed had worked for Citigroup for 11 years.

Separately, Citigroup Private Bank said David Hightower would replace Mr Sayeed as team head for the global Indian market. He will report to Singapore-based Ajay Sondhi, head of India global wealth management and Akbar Shah for regional coordination in Europe.

SEI, the global asset manager, has appointed Jahangir Aka as director of business development for private banking in the UK and the Arab Middle East. Mr Aka, who will be based in London, will report to Francis Jackson, managing director of SEI’s global private banking business. He will be responsible for developing partnerships with private banks and family offices in the UK and Middle East. Prior to joining SEI, Mr Aka spent eight years at Standard Chartered Bank, where most recently he headed product sales and marketing for its international banking team covering clients in Europe, Middle-East, Africa and South Asia.

UBS has appointed Jan-Christian Dreesen to its management board in Germany. Mr Dreesen had left his position as head of private clients for HVB to join UBS. He will be deputy head of wealth management in Germany and be responsible for the bank’s German branches.

Stefan Gugger, head of the board of management and private banking for VP Bank in Switzerland, has resigned. Mr Gugger is taking up a new position, although WealthBriefing has yet to establish where that is. The board of management of VP Bank (Switzerland) will be headed on a temporary basis by Daniel Hug, who is a senior manager within VP Bank.

JP Morgan Private Bank has appointed Enrique Casanueva as senior country officer for Spain. He is expected to succeed Emilio Saracho, who at the end of last year was appointed head of the bank’s private banking activities in Europe. Mr Casanueva is understood to have been promoted within JP Morgan; he has been with the bank since 2000, joining from Banco Santander Central Hispano.

Gerrard Investment Management, the private client stockbrokerage subsidiary of Barclays Wealth Management, has made a number of senior hires in Scotland in a major push for regional growth. Most prominently, Gerrard has hired Mark Little as regional director for Scotland. Mr Little was most recently head of global autos research at Deutsche Bank, where he worked for seven years. Mr Little is joined by Jacqui Ewing, a top-rated fund manager from Scottish Mutual. James Humphries has joined us as a portfolio manager from a small independent wealth management operation in London, Douglas Deaking Young.

Safter Sarwar is joining Gerrard's Edinburgh office as a portfolio manager from Lindsays Wealth Management and also worked for five years as a fund manager at Baillie Gifford. David Moore also joins Gerrard from another area of Barclays as a trainee portfolio manager. These appointments follow on from nine recruited by Gerrard before Christmas for its Glasgow office.Nick Lanzl joins from Macquarie Bank as a portfolio manager on the large funds and charities team.

Other new hires include Fraser Ford who has joined from BWD stockbrokers in Liverpool to work as a portfolio manager, Kerry Hepburn from Berry Birch and Noble, and Jen Marshall from Hymans Robertson. Chris Burke, Mark Paul, Alison Mackinnon and Collette Milliken have been recently recruited to administration roles.

Mirabaud Gestion, the Paris-based private banking subsidiary of Swiss bank Mirabaud, has hired Antoine Huguenin as a senior private banker from Rothschild & Cie Gestion in Paris. Previous to Rothschild, Ms Huguenin worked at Paris-based private bank, Banque Sogip. Mirabaud Gestion hired three private bankers last October: Raphael Spahr, Cecile Troger, and Geoffroy Chatillon. They joined from HSBC Private Bank, Credit Suisse and Rothschild respectively.

Dutch private bank Van Lanschot has hired nine private bankers from MeesPierson, the private banking business of Fortis. The private bankers joining the Amsterdam-based banks are: Marcel Engelbertink, Tanja van der Gaag, Rogier van Heyningen, Arnoud de Hoog, Marcel Kuijer, Roy Neyndorff, Frits van Olphen, Deborah Telling, and Omar Zee. Van Lanschot said in a statement. “These directors and employees, who are joining from MeesPierson, have extensive expertise and many years of experience in the field of private banking. Their appointment is therefore closely in line with Van Lanschot's strategy of further strengthening its position in private banking.”

Geoffrey Bruyn has been appointed head of Merrill Lynch global private client office in Holland. He joins from ABN Amro Bank in Luxembourg, where he was head of the private banking team handling international Dutch clients. At the same time, Eirik Diesen, head of Merrill’s global private client office in Luxembourg, has left, according to sources close to the situation. Mr Diesen is believed to be setting up an indepedent consultancy. Mr Bruyn will report to Benoit vander Borght, deputy manager Merrill’s global private client business for France and Northern Europe.

Phil Austin, the head of Jersey Finance, is to become managing director of Equity Trust in the Channel Islands. Mr Austin will leave his current position in May. He has been chief executive of Jersey Finance – an industry association promoting the island’s financial sector – since its inception in 2001. Jersey Finance said it has begun the process to appoint Mr Austin’s successor, although as yet no one suitable has been found.

SG Hambros Bank (Channel Islands) has appointed Charles Clarke as a non-executive director. Mr Clarke was previously the chairman of professional services firm KPMG in the Channel Islands, where he has been based since 1995. He has worked for KPMG in South East Asia and also in London as a partner in the financial services business unit.

JM Finn, the London-based private client stockbroker, has recruited a top asset gatherer from HSBC Investments. The move follows on from last year’s hire of Hugo Bedford, also from HSBC Investments. Marcus Macintosh, who will be joining JM Finn in April, was a senior director at HSBC Investments and managed more than £200 million ($348 million) of accounts for private clients, trusts, pensions, charities and corporate clients. JM Finn also said that Sam Barty-King has joined the firm from HSBC Investments. Last August, JM Finn, which is still run as an unlimited partnership, hired Mr Bedford, a top-rated private client stockbroker.

Brewin Dolphin Securities has appointed Kirsty Milne as an investment manager to work alongside divisional directors John Driver and Adam Wilkins in the private client advisory team in Birmingham. Before joining Brewin, Ms Milne was a trust investment manager at Mazars Solutions in Edinburgh.

Fulcrum Asset Management, a wealth management and hedge fund business set up by the former chief economist of Goldman Sachs, Gavyn Davies. The six are: Tim Fletcher, Patrick Hall, Scott Gush, Akis Karayiannis, Stefan Pollmann, and Gianlucca Squassi. All have been at Fulcrum for between six months and a year. Fulcrum has around $1.7 billion of assets under management, mostly in its global macro hedge fund, Semper Macro.

Swiss banking group Syz & Co has appointed David Basola as head of business development for Italy. Mr Basola will work for Albertini Syz Investimenti Alternativi, an Italian banking group created jointly by Syz & Co and the Milan-based group Albertini. Albertini Syz Investimenti Alternativi SGR currently manages and distributes a range of Italian-based funds of hedge funds to institutional investors, family offices and high net worth private investors. David Basola joins from GAIM Advisors in London, where he was head of sales and business development for Italy and Switzerland. He joined Integrated Asset Management, a subsidiary of GAIM, in 2002, where he worked within its fund of hedge funds division.

London-based alternative asset manager, The Fortune Group, has re-affirmed its US and UK growth focus with two new hires. Andrew Groves joins from multi-manager T. Bailey Asset Management to focus on the UK market. He was previously head of sales at Rothschild Asset Management. Esther Healer joins to focus on fund buyers in the US. Ms Healer has had prior experience as an equity research analyst and recently completed a three-month assignment for the Fortune Group. She is graduate from Harvard University, and holds an MBA from the London Business School.

Noble Fund Managers, the UK alternative asset manager, has hired Andrew Cracknell and Richard Hoskins, both private client stockbrokers, from Close Brothers. The two hires are set to bolster the firm’s private client and retail sales team. Edinburgh and London based, Noble specialises in alternative asset classes in the UK and Europe including private equity, venture finance and property and infrastructure.

Shore Capital has appointed Stuart MacDonald, former director of hedge funds at Henderson, as its director of alternative investments with a brief to expand its $1 billion alternative assets fund management business. Prior to Henderson, where he was instrumental in developing the company’s $2 billion single manager hedge fund business, Mr MacDonald worked at West Merchant Bank and Buchanan Partners.

Baring Asset Management, the global investment management firm, has appointed Mike Young as assistant director for business development in the Middle East. Mr Young is based in London and is responsible for growing Barings’ mutual fund and hedge fund business in the Middle East. Mr Young has ten years’ experience in investment sales, both in the UK and the Middle East. He has most recently been at Cofunds and Legal & General Investment.

Ogier, the offshore law firm, has appointed associates Giorgio Subiotto and Colin MacKay as partners in the firm’s Cayman Islands office. Mr Subiotto joined Ogier from Sullivan & Cromwell, New York, in 2002. Previously he worked for Linklaters where he was based in London then Paris, specialising in investment and private equity fund formation. Mr Mackay previously worked for leading Scottish law firms Maclay Murray & Spens and then MacRoberts. He joined Ogier in 2003 and specialises in investment funds, financial services and products, corporate and commercial law. Their appointment takes the number of partners at the Cayman office of Ogier to six.

Mark Somers, the former wealth and asset management recruitment specialist at Gow & Partners and Norman Broadbent, has set up his own UK recruitment group called Somers Partnership. The firm will concentrate solely on top-level retained assignments within the sector and will be assisted by an advisory board of industry experts.

North America
US Trust has hired Raj Seshadri as chief marketing officer and head of strategy. Mr Seshadri joins from McKinsey & Co, where he was a partner in the management consultancy’s New York office.

Pam Hendrickson, the former global head of capital advisory and liquidity management at JPMorgan Private Bank in New York, is leaving the bank to join a private-equity firm. Ms Hendrickson is joining The Riverside Company, a private-equity firm focused on small and middle-market companies.

Separately, JP Morgan Private Bank announced the appointment of Phil Conway as head of the US capital advisory business, which offers lending and credit-related services for private banking clients. Mr Conway currently serves as the president of JP Morgan in Houston, a position he will retain.

Credit Suisse has appointed Sharon Egilinsky as a managing director and head of strategy for its asset management division in the Americas, a newly created role. Ms Egilinsky will have responsibility for developing and executing a business strategy with a focus on opportunities for growth in the region. She will also work closely with the sales and product teams on identifying opportunities in the market.
Ms Egilinsky will be based in New York and will report to Lawrence Haber, chief operating officer for the asset management division.

Jonathan Morgan, chief investment officer for alternative investments at Julius Baer based in New York, has left to join Barclays Global Investors. Mr Morgan will head the hedge fund research team at BGI. A spokesman for Julius Baer said the bank’s alternative investment business has now been integrated with GAM and as a consequence there is no direct replacement for Mr Morgan.

Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management has appointed Susan Hartley a managing director and head of trust and estate services in New York. She joins from US Trust, where she was senior vice president and chief fiduciary officer. Previously, she was vice president and head of trust administration for SunTrust Bank. Ms Hartley will serve as the senior fiduciary advisor within the New York trust department, and will manage the trust advisor teams in Atlanta, Palm Beach and New York. She also will serve as a senior advisor to high net worth families, and provide business development support.

Separately, Deutsche Bank has appointed Frank Scheuer as managing director and head of operating platforms for its US private wealth management division. Mr Scheuer was previously at Credit Suisse private client division in New York where he was chief operating officer. He will have responsibilities of a chief operating officer at Deutsche. The post formerly was held by Thomas Bowers, who recently was named to head the private wealth management unit after the sudden departure of Mark Peters, who had been in the job for less than six months after leaving Citigroup Private Bank.

Merrill Lynch Investment Managers has recruited Doug Shaw, a former partner at hedge fund manager, The Children's Investment Fund Management, to run its alternative investment division. Mr Shaw’s remit is to expand MLIM's alternatives business, which comprises single manager hedge funds, property and private equity.

Asia-Pacific
Jim Carideo has been appointed head of Citigroup Wealth Advisors in Australia. Mr Carideo was previously divisional sales manager for Citigroup subsidiary Smith Barney. Citigroup is still looking for a replacement for Wayne Yang, the former head of the bank’s global wealth management business in Australia and New Zealand. Mr Yang was forced to resign at the end of last year after more than 200 Australian-based staff threatened to walk out because of dissatisfaction over management practices. Mr Yang has since returned to the US to take up another senior role at Citigroup’s wealth management business, although his position has yet to be disclosed.

Arpit Agarwal, the former head of ICICI Bank’s private banking venture in India, is to head a new joint venture between UK-based Dawnay Day International and well known Indian investor Alok Vajpeyi to target India’s wealthy. The new firm, Dawnay Day AV, will be based in Mumbai and cover wealth management, stockbroking, retail distribution, corporate finance, portfolio management, real estate advisory and research services. Mr Vajpeyi was the former head of DSP Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, one of India's leading asset management companies.

Société Générale Asset Management is expanding its operations in Asia, recruiting two chief marketing officers; one in Hong Kong and the other in Singapore. Beonca Yip has joined SGAM in Hong Kong, where she is responsible for developing institutional business and retail fund distribution in North Asia. She has worked for Citibank and JF Asset Management, and latterly she was the regional director, Asia, International Investments, for Pramerica Asia Fund Management. Ernest Yeo has joined SGAM in Singapore, where he is responsible for developing SGAM’s institutional business and retail fund distribution in South East Asia. Before joining SGAM in January 2006, Mr Yeo was director in the sales and marketing team at Deutsche Asset Management in Asia.

London-based Atlantis Investment Management has appointed Yui Ben Lai as a fund manager and Sam Shan as a Chinese equity analyst. They will report to Yang Liu, managing director of Atlantis Investment Management Hong Kong. Mr Lai joins from Kingsway Financial Services Group. Mr Shan joins Atlantis’ Shanghai office from the Economic Research Institute of Guosen Securities where he held a senior sales position.

Middle East
Standard Bank has hired Laurence Black, head of Royal Bank of Canada’s global private banking business in Dubai. Mr Black had been with RBC since 1988. Standard Bank is believed to have hired Mr Black to develop its private banking and trust business throughout the Middle East. The South African-based bank recently received a licence by Dubai’s Financial Services Authority to establish a full branch within the Dubai International Financial Centre.