St James’s Place (SJP) Wealth Management Asia has added Daniel Brunner and Thomas Forster to the SJP Partnership, according to a statement from the firm.
The SJP Partnership is a collective of advisory businesses and financial advisers that operate independently under the SJP Wealth Brand, servicing as a dedicated distribution network to deliver the firm’s offerings, a spokeswoman for SJP explained.
Partners may range in size from a single person up to a team of staff and have the freedom to organise their businesses the way it suits them, according to the firm’s website.
Under the partnership programme, SJP has 155 financial advisers who are based in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai, the spokeswoman said.
Brunner and Forster, who are both based in Singapore, will be working independently, the spokeswoman noted.
Before SJP, Forster was a senior relationship manager at Schroders Wealth Management from April 2018 to October last year, according to his Linkedin profile.
Brunner, meanwhile, joined from the Singapore office of Marcuard Heritage, where he was a senior management consultant, according to his Linkedin profile. Marcuard Heritage is a wealth management firm with offices in Zurich, Moscow and Limassol, according to the firm’s website. Before that, he held various senior management roles at Credit Suisse.
Matthew Deeprose, SJP’s head of business for Hong Kong, told FSA previously that the firm is on a recruitment drive in Asia, in a move to grow its AUM in the region.
In Asia, the firm manages around £1bn ($1.29bn) in assets, according to the spokeswoman.
However, Asia accounts for only 1% of St James’s Place’s total AUM and about £400m of that total is from the 2014 acquisition of Asia-based Henley Group, David Bellamy, SJP’s chairman, said in a separate interview.
“Growing AUM is about growing distribution, and the only way to that is through our advisers, helping them to become better and attract more clients,” David Bellamy, SJP’s chairman said in a separate interview in November. At the time, the firm was preparing for the launch of its discretionary portfolio management (DPM) business in Asia, after it received a licence in Singapore to offer discretionary services to investors.
