In November the focus of wealth management executive hiring was on the UK and the US. UK Barclays Wealth has appointed Barbara-Ann King ...

In November the focus of wealth management executive hiring was on the UK and the US.

UK
Barclays Wealth has appointed Barbara-Ann King as head of alternative product development, reporting to Kevin Lecocq, chief investment officer.

Barclays Wealth has also appointed Jonathan Colchester as a director in its London operation. He will report to Richard Green, who heads up the UK Private Banking division.

Mr Colchester joins in December from Rothschilds Private Management where he was a director with responsibility for developing UK and international business.

Barclays Wealth has made a number of key appointments since the beginning of the year.

In the UK these include: Gerard Aquilina as head of International Private Bank; Edward Chadwyck-Healey as managing director in the high net worth segment of the UK Private Bank; Paul Richardson as director with responsibility for sport, media and entertainment; Kevin Lecocq, head of the Product Office; Jeremy Arnold, head of Wealth Advisory; Brian Cordischi as head of Investment Management and Farzan Riza, chief operating officer across Gerrard UK Private Bank.

International appointments include: Rodney Allen, head of Wealth Structuring based in Geneva; Soha Nashaat, head of the Middle East; Jamie Apold, a senior private banker in Geneva; and Vicky Patino, Geneva sales director for International Affluent business.

Ms King will be responsible for developing hedge fund, private equity, real estate and commodity products for the clients of Barclays Wealth. She was previously at Citigroup, where she was director of the global alternative investments group for the global private bank in New York, managing assets in excess of $16 billion.

Phil Degen is to join Singer & Friedlander Investment Management as a high net worth fund manager.

Mr Degen, who will be based in London and will report to Chris Buzzard, left Rothschild in April of this year and previously spent 25 years at Kleinwort Benson.

Mr Degen’s appointment is part of Singer’s strategy of employing experienced client-facing investment managers.

Singer & Friedlander Investment Management is owned by Iceland bank Kaupthing and has around £3.5 billion in assets under management.

JS&P Towry Law has appointed former Gartmore chief executive Glyn Jones as non-executive chairman.

JS&P acquired IFA Towry Law in May and now has more than 150 advisors and over £50 million in annual fee-based revenue.

Mr Jones, who has recently been appointed a director of Aspen Insurance, was most recently chief executive of UK-based Thames River Capital, and was previously chief executive of Gartmore Investment Management from 2000 to 2004.

Prior to that, Mr Jones was chief executive of the Coutts Group from 1997 to 2000.

TD Waterhouse, the UK-based execution-only broker, has appointed Angus Rigby as its new chief executive from 1 December 2006. He succeeds Michael Foulkes who is retiring at the end of the year.

Rathbone Investment Management has appointed Edward Gosnell as an investment director responsible for managing UK and offshore portfolios for private clients and their associated companies, trusts, pension funds and charities.

He joins from HSBC, where he worked alongside James Maltin, who also joined Rathbones earlier this year.

Mr Gosnell was previously a partner of stockbrokers Buckmaster and Moore.

Standard Bank Offshore has appointed Nigel Watson as director of intermediary distribution.

Mr Watson will be responsible for building the bank’s distribution and managing the development of its products through independent financial advisors around the world.

Mr Watson joins Standard Bank Offshore after having previously held senior positions with several offshore life companies, including Scottish Provident International.

Specialist investment manager Dawnay Day Quantum has appointed Chris Taylor as managing director of its structured investments division. He will be responsible for developing DDQ’s structured investments business, and its range of offerings.

Mr Taylor joins from HSBC Investments, where he held senior roles most recently as director, UK structured products distribution. He was responsible for the strategy, development and positioning of the structured product proposition across the group’s multiple UK channels.

UK law firm Wilsons has appointed Matthew Bennett as a new tax partner in its private client team.

He was formerly head of the owner-managed business unit at Osborne Clarke and specialises in advising business owners and entrepreneurs on the management of their wealth and personal affairs, with a particular focus on tax. He also advises individuals on matters including wills, general wealth management, trusts and offshore planning.

Mr Bennett is the seventh new lawyer to be recruited this year by Wilsons across the business.

Credit Suisse has appointed Joachim Mies as chief operating officer for asset management in EMEA. He will be responsible for overseeing divisionally aligned support functions for the asset management business and for supporting Credit Suisse’s aim of growing the EMEA asset management unit.

Mr Mies joins Credit Suisse from Dresdner Kleinwort where he was deputy global COO based in London. He has held a number of similar roles at Dresdner Kleinwort based in regions including Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.

Mr Mies will be based in London and report to Mark Burgess in asset management and to Costas Michaelides, COO of the EMEA region for Credit Suisse’s divisions.

Credit Suisse has also appointed Peter Hindle as a regional advisor to reinforce their private banking operations in the North West of England. Reporting to Richard Algar, vice president and head of the UK regional team, Mr Hindle’s role will include building new private client relationships in the North-West of England.

Mr Hindle has previously worked as a solicitor with a range of clients including entrepreneurs, notably at Addleshaw Goddard, where he specialised in private equity transactions, and DLA Piper, where his focus was on corporate transactions.

Credit Suisse has appointed Amrit Uppal as a UK regional advisor in the Midlands.

Mr Uppal will work closely with the bank’s Midlands advisory team providing advice and investment solutions to private clients.

He will report to Richard Algar, vice president and head of the UK regional team. Mr Uppal joins Credit Suisse from Coutts & Co, where he worked for five years as a private banker looking after clients with wealth in excess of £5 million.

Ansbacher Channel Islands, part of the Ansbacher Group, has appointed Bob Jackson as head of banking and investment operations based in its Jersey Office. He will report to Mark Bright, managing director Ansbacher Channel Islands.

Mr Jackson joins Ansbacher from Royal Bank of Scotland where, as director of operations, he was responsible for bringing together the operational teams of RBS International and SG Warburg Custody to form £10 billion offshore custodian RBSI Custody Bank.

David Bennett, currently head of the City of London Corporation’s Brussels office, is to be the new chief executive of UK-based trade body APCIMS, the Association of Private Client Investment Managers and Stockbrokers. He will join the association on 1 January 2007.

Mr Bennett was previously a director of Citigate a public relations consultancy and as director of public affairs at Eurofi.

SG Hambros Bank & Trust has appointed senior private bankers Nigel Humphrey and Martin Brown to its UK regional private banking team.

Mr Humphrey joins from Coutts, where he was most recently head of its Hampshire office developing the bank’s regional offering. Mr Humphrey will be responsible for developing SG Hambros’ regional presence in the South of England, focusing on Hampshire and Berkshire.

Mr Brown also joins from Coutts, where he was head of the Bournemouth office. Mr Brown will work alongside Mr Humphrey in the South of England, focusing on Dorset, Devon and Hampshire.

Royal Bank of Canada is looking to recruit up to 10 new international investment advisors, to be based in London, to support rapid business growth in the British Isles.

David Miller, head of Advisory London, at RBC said: “We have had impressive business growth over the last 12 months and have ambitious plans to develop our advisory business over one, three and five years.

ABN Amro Asset Management has appointed David Kiddie to the role of chief investment officer equities in the UK to succeed Kevin Smith.

Mr Kiddie, who has been with Baring Asset Management since 2003, most recently as head of equities will join early in 2007.

Switzerland
Michel Arni has stepped down as head of Swiss private banking for Rothschild. Mr Arni ran the client facing account executive team in Zurich and reported to Veit de Maddalena who is country head for Switzerland and head of the Swiss private bank.

Mr de Maddalena has taken over Mr Arni’s responsibilities for the front office in Zurich, according to a statement from Rothschild.

Mr Arni left Rothschild at the end of October.

Geneva-based HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) has appointed seven new directors to its board, increasing its number to 12.

The joiners are Jan Carlsson, Paul Choffat, Urs Fischer, Pierre Genecand, Carlo Lombardini, Bill Kwok and Christopher Meares.

At the same time Jean-Pierre Jacquemoud and Oscar Lewisohn have stepped down as directors. Mr Jacquemoud had been one of two deputy chairmen.

Mr Meares is HSBC's new group chief executive for private banking. Mr Carlsson is an executive of SAS Airlines, Mr Choffat is from Novartis and Mr Fischer from Swiss Life. Mr Lombardini is a Geneva-based lawyer and Mr Kwok is a Hong Kong securities industry official.

Geneva-based boutique private bank Banque Piguet has hired Middle East-specialist Kalman Sporn as a private banker in its Geneva office.

Mr Sporn, a native New Yorker, was previously managing director of Galadari Investment Office in Dubai. He will be servicing clients in the Middle East, Israel, the UK and North America.

Dieter Enkelmann has become the new chief financial officer and a member of the group executive board of the Julius Baer Group.

He joins from Barry Callebaut in Zurich, where he has been CFO since 2003. He was six years with Swiss Re as chief financial officer of the financial services business unit.

Christoph Weber, currently deputy to the chief executive of ATAG Asset Management, is to join Lugano-based Banca del Gottardo on 1 March 2007. As a member of the executive board, he will be responsible for managing and expanding the private banking business in Switzerland's German and French-speaking regions as well as in Luxembourg. He will be predominantly based in Zurich.

Henderson Global Investors has appointed Ariane Dehn manager of its Zurich office.

Ms Dehn will be responsible for expanding Henderson’s activities in the German speaking market of Switzerland. She has recently been responsible for Henderson’s wholesale distribution business in Austria.

Claus Sendelbach will take charge of the Frankfurt subsidiary of Zurich-based private bank and asset manager Vontobel from 1 December 2006. He will be responsible for the further development of Vontobel’s asset management and investment fund business in Germany.

He succeeds Dr Heinrich Wohlfahrt, who is leaving Vontobel.

Europe
Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, the Italian subsidiary of BNP Paribas, has appointed Stefano Calderano to head the BNL retail and private banking unit.

Mr Calderano joins from Banca Intesa, where he has been running retail marketing since 2003, overseeing the integration of the group’s banks by the adoption of a single business model. Before that, he held the same position in the BankPost Division of the Italian Post Office Services for four and a half years.

Deutsche Bank is appointing Hans Kraus, the current head of its personal banking operations in its Private and Business Clients division, to run its recently acquired Norisbank unit.

Bancaja – the official savings bank of Valencia - has bagged a strong team from Banco Urquijo for its private banking division, including head Francisco Gomez Trenor and deputy Manuel Balanzat.

Middle East
Credit Suisse has confirmed the appointment of Raj Sehgal as the head of the non-resident Indian Group for Private Banking in the Middle East/Indian sub-continent as first reported in October.

Mr Sehgal joins from Merrill Lynch, where he was a director and global head of the non-resident Indian business. He will be based in Dubai.

Prior to his stint at Merrill, Mr Sehgal spent 11 years at American Express Bank, where he held a number of positions including corporate banking head, India, and financial institutions head, India/Europe and Middle East.

In addition, in his role as deputy branch manager of Credit Suisse Dubai, Mr Sehgal will be responsible for further strengthening Dubai as a hub for the bank’s Middle Eastern activities.

Asia Pacific
Aviva Australia has announced three internal promotions in its product, marketing and public relations teams.

In the product department, Andrew Barker takes on the role of general manager, wealth management products, while Natalie Eckersall has been promoted to general manager for wealth protection products.

Mr Barker moves from the distribution team to take on his new position and will be responsible for the ongoing development of Aviva’s investment and superannuation products, offered under the Navigator platform.

In marketing and public relations, Tim Cobb has been appointed to the new role of general manager.

Royal Bank of Scotland has appointed Lawrence Lam as head of global banking and markets in China, reporting to John McCormick, chief executive of Asia Pacific for the global banking division.

Mr Lam will have dual responsibility for the bank’s wealth management business in the region along with responsibility for corporate, financial institution, government and public sector clients.

Mr Lam was previously responsible for the Asia Pacific regional treasury and investor products.
India’s Yes Bank has appointed Dhaval Oza as Gujarat regional head for retail banking and wealth management.

Mr Dhaval was previously the chief officer with SBI Cards and was responsible for forming a distribution company for wealth management products.

He has also worked at ABN Amro, HDFC and ICICI.

Credit Suisse has hired James Ieong as director of distribution in China for asset management. He previously worked at JF Asset Management, where he headed the institutional business for China.

Mr Ieong will report to Omar Cordes, managing director and head of distribution for Asia-Pacific. Mr Cordes joined the firm in September from CQS, a hedge fund based in London.

John Pearce, who was appointed chief executive of Colonial First State, Australia’s Commonwealth Bank's wealth management arm in January 2003, is to leave to join an unnamed overseas financial institution.

UBS, the world's largest wealth manager, has appointed a new head of Private Banking for Singapore.

Eddie Gan joins from DBS, Singapore’s largest bank by assets, where he was head of the Singapore team.

Mr Gan, who has already joined UBS, had been with DBS since 1999. Previously he was at ANZ Private Bank.

Rajesh Malkani has been appointed as managing director, global head of sales and business development at Standard Chartered Private Bank.

Mr Malkani joined at the start of October, is based in Singapore and reports to Peter Flavel, global head of Standard Chartered Private Bank.

Mr Malkani joins from BNP Paribas Private Bank in Singapore where, in addition to his role as head of sales and marketing, he was involved in the design and implementation of policies and processes related to credit, compliance, IT systems and products.

US
Merrill Lynch has restructured its US private banking and investment group division, naming two new regional heads to oversee the new Western and Eastern regions.

John Thiel who headed the Mountain West region for private banking, has been named Western managing director. He will take over as the sole chief in the private banking unit from Andy Edelman, who is retiring as head of private banking and recruiting for the Americas.

Jennifer Povlitz, who ran the Metropolitan New York area, has been appointed as Eastern managing director. She will also head up the division's diversity programmes.

Tony Comper is to retire as president and chief executive officer, of Canada’s BMO Financial Group at the company's next annual meeting in March 2007. He will not stand for re-election to the board of directors.

Chief operating officer Bill Downe has been announced as Mr Comper's successor. Mr Comper will stay on in an advisory capacity until his scheduled retirement next April.

First Republic Bank has appointed another managing director of its investment management firm, Trainer Wortham & Co.

Prior to joining First Republic, Mr Peterson was with US Trust as senior vice president and senior portfolio manager for eight years, working with high net worth individuals and institutions. Previously, he worked for Wells Fargo Bank as an investment officer.

First Republic recently appointed Brett Berry to the same position as Mr Peterson. He was also previously at US Trust.

New York-based Signature Bank has appointed a new private client banking team based in Melville, Long Island, New York.

The new team is headed by Fred Forgione, who becomes group director and senior vice president.
Commerce Capital Markets, a wholly owned subsidiary of Commerce Bancorp, has appointed Russell Vernon as senior vice president and chief operating officer.

Mr Vernon, will report to Commerce Capital Markets' chief executive officer Stan Gregor, and will be responsible for supporting the overall growth and expansion of Commerce Capital's fixed income, asset management and wealth management groups.

Prior to joining Commerce Capital Markets, Mr Vernon was COO of Barrett Associates, a New York-based investment management and wealth advisory firm, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Legg Mason.

Morgan Stanley has tapped Lehman Brothers for a team of six financial professionals in Miami.

The team, which caters to clients with at least $20 million, is; Hugo Mantilla, Eric Newman, Becky Haya Acevedo, Sergio Mejia, Teodoro Bueres and Anthony Jarrin.

First Republic Bank has appointed Stephen Kelly as a relationship manager.

Mr Kelly will work with high net worth individuals and families, providing private banking, investment management and trust services and real estate lending at the bank's office in mid-town Manhattan.

Before joining First Republic, Mr Kelly was with US Trust as senior vice president and relationship manager for 21 years.

Former Merrill Lynch private banker Gail Eisenkraft has been appointed director of marketing for Wachovia Corporation’s Evergreen Investments in the US.

Ms Eisenkraft is a 20-year veteran of the financial services industry and her most recent role was as first vice president of marketing strategy at Merrill Lynch’s Global Private Client Group. Prior to that, she had 11 years at Fidelity Investments, where she headed high net worth marketing.

Mark Sutton, member of the Group Executive Board of UBS and chairman and chief executive of the Americas, has decided to step down in order to pursue other business opportunities and personal interests, according to a statement from the Swiss bank.

Mr Sutton, who was previously chairman and chief executive officer of Wealth Management US, will remain with the bank until the end of 2006.

In his place, Robert Wolf has been appointed as chairman and chief executive of UBS Americas. Mr Wolf has previously been chairman of UBS Investment Bank, Americas and global chief operating officer of UBS Investment Bank. He will report to Huw Jenkins, chairman and chief executive of UBS Investment Bank, who will assume regional responsibility for the Americas in the UBS Group Executive Board.

HSBC Private Bank has hired Patrick Campion as a managing director and head of the US private bank reporting to Marlon Young.

Mr Campion succeeds Mr Young, who in September became chief executive officer for the Americas, HSBC Private Bank.

Mr Campion, who will join in January 2007, will be responsible for continuing the private bank’s expansion in the US.

Mr Campion was, most recently, head of Deutsche Bank US Private Bank. Previously, he served as Manhattan region head for Citigroup Private Bank.

He also spent 10 years at JP Morgan Chase as a relationship manager in both the corporate banking and private banking businesses.

Credit Suisse has appointed Keith "Kim" Schappert as a managing director and chief executive officer of the Americas for asset management.

Mr Schappert was most recently the president and chief executive officer of Federated Investment Advisory Companies, the investment management arm of Federated Investments, where he ran a business with more than $220 billion in assets under management.

Prior to Federated, Mr Schappert spent over 25 years at JP Morgan Investment Management, where he served in a variety of roles, including president and chief executive officer.

Mr Schappert will represent asset management on Credit Suisse's Americas CEO Management Committee. He will be based in New York and will report to David Blumer, chief executive officer of asset management.

Deutsche Bank has appointed Christopher Burnham as a vice chairman and managing director of Deutsche Asset Management, effective from 15 November 2006. He will report to Kevin Parker, Global Head of Deutsche Asset Management and will be based in New York.

Mr Burnham will be responsible for developing key client relationships and a variety of special projects. He will also serve on DeAM's global operating committee.

Mr Burnham was previously Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and the highest-ranking American in the UN Secretariat, reporting to UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. He helped lead efforts to reform the UN and introduce greater transparency and efficiency, and created the UN's first Ethics Office.

Guggenheim Wealth Management, a division of Guggenheim Partners, a global diversified financial services firm, has acquired the financial and life management business founded and run by Barry Klarberg.

Mr Klarberg represents more than 600 professional athletes, entertainers and high net worth families.

Mr Klarberg was recently a managing director of Loring Ward International. He began his career at Deloitte & Touche, becoming the head of its sports and entertainment practice, before founding Klarberg, Raiola & Associates.