When businesses have to change and recapitalise in the wake of supply chain disruptions wrought by the pandemic, trade conflicts, new technologies and other forces, HNW and UHNW owners need solutions. We talk to Deutsche Bank about this topic – and the evolving world of art-based lending.

As Asia-based business owners have sought to recapitalise, obtain liquidity amidst succession plans, or expand into new markets, they’ve provided Deutsche Bank’s lending teams with plenty of work. 

A close understanding of what clients want and their circumstances, built over the long term, is part of the not-so-secret sauce for the Germany-headquartered lender in Hong Kong, June Wong (main picture), head of lending for APAC at Deutsche’s wealth management business, told this publication in a recent interview. 

WealthBriefingAsia recently met Wong, who has held senior positions at Deutsche Bank since joining in 2011, at the bank’s offices in the Asian city.

For businessmen and women restructuring their firms in the aftermath of the pandemic, or managing supply chain changes, IPOs and other events, the benefits of allying with Deutsche are clear, she said. 

The clients Wong and her colleagues deal with, such as ultra-high net worth individuals, are mainly the principals in their businesses; Deutsche will also typically manage the private wealth of such people, Wong said.

Alongside restructuring and change, another business area important for Deutsche in Hong Kong is a reviving IPO market. As firms are floated on the stock market, “people will remain majority owners, reaching a point [where they are wondering] about what else they want to do,” she said. 

“People want to retain [corporate] control but want also to get liquidity out of it [IPO],” Wong continued. Part of this process involves borrowing against the value of their shares, aka “Single Stock Lending.”

The restructuring post-Covid was important for clients with assets such as hotels and the wider hospitality sector, recovering from the hit to occupancy rates, she said. This is exactly the kind of area that Deutsche can work in, with its understanding of asset values over the medium term, combined with its ability to recognise clients’ financial strength beyond the asset in question, Wong continued. 

Deutsche Bank is very clearly making a virtue of putting its private banking and wealth management services under the same roof as corporate, investment and commercial banking. The lender appears to be in robust health. In the second quarter of 2025, it reported net profit of €3.7 billion ($4.29 billion), up from €1.5 billion in the prior year period. It has a Common Equity Tier 1 ratio – a standard international yardstick of a bank’s “shock absorber capital â€“ of 14.2 per cent. At the private bank, pre-tax profits were up 50 per cent on a year before. The Frankfurt-headquartered lender is due to report third-quarter 2025 results on 29 October.

Art and lending
WBA asked Wong about a separate but related field – lending money to those who use their fine art collections as collateral. While a niche area in the totality of overall bank credit, it is important, and a way for a bank to deepen its engagement with clients. (WBA met Wong a few days prior to the London Art Frieze fair, of which the German bank is principal sponsor; it runs until 2 November 2025. This is the 22nd year that Deutsche has partnered with Frieze.)

Deutsche Bank works with auctioneers such as Sotheby’s and other professionals working in this sector. Global economic uncertainties have weighed on the market somewhat. “Things have definitely slowed down,” Wong said, citing recent figures from the annual UBS Art Basel report on fine art sales. That said, there is movement: “We are definitely seeing Chinese investors coming in and taking up some transactions.”

“Chinese people are increasing their appreciation for art,” she said, and this trend is noticeable among the younger generation of HNW Chinese people.

Some of this collection focuses on domestic Chinese art, driven by family reasons and a desire to have an investment that connects with local roots, Wong said.

Social media, travel and an interest in international art is also encouraging Chinese investors' to engage with art, she said.

Part of Wong's remit is to help to set realistic expectations for clients about art-based lending. “In the past, art hadn’t been an asset that people had thought all that much about. More and more clients, though, are receptive to it. Some are using these [art lending] facilities to acquire more art,” she said.