Caroline Maurer will join HSBC as head of Chinese and Hong Kong equities in September, according to a statement from the firm.
She will lead a team of portfolio managers and analysts based in Hong Kong to manage offshore and onshore Chinese equity assets worth around $7bn.
“We remain positive on the long-term prospects for China, [and] the appointment of Caroline reinforces our commitment to growing our assets in the region and capturing exciting investment opportunities in this rapidly evolving market,” said Bill Maldonado, chief investment officer, Asia-Pacific, at HSBC GAM in the statement.
Maurer, who will report directly to Maldonado, has worked in the asset management industry for 13 years. Most recently, she was head of Greater China equities at BNP Paribas Asset Management, where she managed offshore and onshore Chinese equity mandates for five years. Prior to that, Maurer managed Chinese equity funds at Henderson Global Investors in London and Singapore.
She replaces Mandy Chan, who left HSBC GAM in December 2019
In addition, HSBC Jintrust Fund Management, a joint venture between HSBC GAM (49%) and Shanxi Trust (51%) which was formed in 2005, has hired Lihua Huang as head of active equity to lead its Shanghai-based team of equity investment managers.
The AUM of HSBC Jintrust were $3.13bn as of 31 March 2020, according to a spokeswoman at HSBC GAM.
The firm manages 21 onshore local mutual funds, runs several segregated accounts and provides investment advisory services, she added.
Huang, who reports to Michael Zheng, head of investment at HSBC Jintrust, joined HSBC Jintrust in June and his responsibilities include managing the Jintrust Large Cap Equity Fund. He has 13 years of experience in managing Chinese equity assets and was most recently an executive director of financial markets at Citic Private Equity Funds Investment.
“The appointments of Maurer and Huang will strengthen the collaboration between Hong Kong and Shanghai teams and enhance HSBC GAM’s strong position in Chinese equities,” said Maldonado.
Last week, HSBC Life China, HSBC’s life insurance joint venture in the mainland, started offering a digital financial planning and insurance service, delivered by newly recruited personal wealth management. The mobile personal wealth planners will initially cover new customers in Guangzhou and Shanghai. HSBC is also setting up fintech firm in China to provide technology, digital and data services to support the firm’s entities in the mainland.
In March, HSBC said it would restructure its wealth management business to combine both high net worth and retail investors in one unit. Subsequently, HSBC Private Banking has made several key hires, including Lavanya Chari who was plucked from Deutsche Banks to become global head of products, investments and collaboration, and Sharon Oh who was poached from JP Morgan’s private banking unit to be chief operating office of HSBC Private Bank in Asia-Pacific.
Meanwhile, the HSBC group recently confirmed that it intends to go ahead with plans to cut 35,000 jobs worldwide.
