Credit Suisse appoints wealth management CEO
Switzerland’s second-biggest bank said Francesco De Ferrari would return to the firm as chief executive office its wealth-management division and interim CEO of Europe, Middle East and Africa.
De Ferrari, who worked at Credit Suisse between 2002 and 2018, during which he had spells as head of private banking in Asia Pacific and CEO of Southeast Asia and frontier markets. Between 2008 and 2011, he was CEO Private Banking Italy.
He re-joins Credit Suisse after leading Australian wealth management firm AMP, which prior to his arrival had been exposed for widespread misconduct by the country’s banking royal commission.
De Ferraris’s appointment to the Credit Suisse wealth management top position, comes after a torrid year for the bank as it reeled from losses after the collapse of the family office Archegos and the failure of supply-chain finance company Greensill.
Meanwhile, Christian Meissner, CEO of Credit Suisse’s investment bank division, has been made CEO of the Americas, Helman Sitohang has been named as CEO of Asia Pacificm, and Andre Helfenstein as CEO of Switzerland.
Eastspring hires head of sustainability
Eastspring Investments, the $254bn asset management business of Prudential plc, has hired Stuart Wilson for the newly created position of head of sustainability. Subject to regulatory approvals, Wilson will start his role on 10 January 2022 and will report directly to Wai-Kwong Seck, chief executive officer, Eastspring Investments Group.
Wilson will lead and accelerate the firm’s responsible investment efforts across the business and make sustainability a key part of its culture. He will be responsible for the sustainability team and will work closely with the investment teams and regional functional leads to further integrate ESG considerations into investment processes and develop new sustainability-themed products and to meet client demands for responsible investment portfolios.
Wilson joins Eastspring from Sunsuper, the largest superannuation fund by membership in Queensland, Australia, where he was the head of responsible investing.
Mirae appoints Citi veteran to its board
Mirae Asset Global Investments (Hong Kong) has brought in Stewart Aldcroft to serve as an independent nonexecutive director of the Global X Exchange Traded Funds Series OFC. The industry veteran is the first independent director to serve on the OFC’s board of directors and joins board members Jung Ho Rhee and Byung Ha Kim.
The Global X Exchange Traded Funds Series OFC is a Hong Kong public umbrella open-ended fund company with variable capital that was incorporated in 2019. It currently has 10 sub-funds in the form of exchange traded funds listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, including the Global X China Electric Vehicle and Battery ETF and Global X China Clean Energy ETF.
Aldcroft was previously chairman of Cititrust Limited in Hong Kong and senior advisor for Citi’s securities services business in Asia Pacific. He has also held a variety of positions for traditional, hedge, structured and alternative fund houses across Asia.
Julius Baer elevates fund specialist
Jeffrey Tam has been promoted to head of fund specialists Hong Kong at Bank Julius Baer. Based in the territory, he is responsible for funds advisory for clients in Greater China, covering both traditional and alternative investments.
Prior to joining Bank Julius Baer in 2018, Tam was a funds specialist at Deutsche Bank Wealth Management for three years. He was responsible for the bank’s traditional and alternative fund offerings with specialisation in hedge funds. He started his career in finance at Citi Private Bank, where he was a portfolio advisor, managing clients’ investment portfolios.
Nuveen taps Greater China transaction head
Nuveen has appointed David Chan as head of real estate transactions for Greater China at Nuveen Real Estate Asia Pacific, effective 11 October 2021.
Based in Hong Kong, Chan is responsible for sourcing and managing transactions. He reports to Louise Kavanagh, chief investment officer and head of funds management of Nuveen Real Estate Apac, who is also based in Hong Kong.
Chan has 11 years of real estate private equity experience. Most recently, he was at Phoenix Property Investors playing a role in the origination and execution of the firm’s real estate debt strategy. Before that, he worked in H.I.G. Capital in New York, where he was responsible for evaluating, investing and managing value-add and special situation real estate investments across all property types in the US.
