UBS has hired Alun Branigan to head its corporate advisory group in Singapore as the Swiss bank continues to build its wealth management business in Asia, especially in its ultra-high-net-worth team.
Branigan, who reports to LH Koh and Daniel Harel, brings experience spanning 20 years across both investment banking and principal investment. He was most recently heading a consultancy business he set up. Before that he was one of the founding partners of Actis, a private-equity fund that specialises in investments in emerging markets. He was also earlier the head of investment banking for Asia ex-Japan at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.
Two senior bankers from Morgan Stanley’s wealth management division have joined UBS’s ultra-high-net-worth division today, after serving their gardening leave. Henry Pang will be one of the UHNW team heads for China international team, while Peter Tung will head the Greater China unit, covering ultra-rich clients in Hong Kong and China/Taiwan International.
UBS has also made several other senior-level hires. David Hayward-Evans has joned UBS as head of philanthropy and values-based investing for Asia-Pacific and family services in Singapore. This is a newly created position.
Stephen Lam has joined the Taiwan international high-net-worth team as country head, reporting to David Man. This is another newly created position, a UBS spokesperson confirmed. Lam was earlier a managing director responsible for Thailand, Taiwan and Indonesia at Citi.
Jourdan Gozali has joined as a desk head in wealth management in Singapore, reporting to Andrew Ho. He was most recently part of the private banking team at HSBC in Indonesia and has also worked at OCBC.
Seigo Yoshida has been appointed as a cluster head for domestic wealth management in Japan at the Osaka business office. He reports to Tsuneaki Hirao. He earlier worked for almost 40 years at Nomura Holdings, most recently as deputy branch manager at the Osaka branch.
“We have hired in excess of 100 new employees in July and August alone. Indeed, since the beginning of this year, more than 300 people have joined the business across the region,” said UBS in a memo signed by Kathryn Shih, who heads wealth management for UBS for Asia-Pacific.
FinanceAsia chose Shih as one of its top 20 women in finance in Asia recently, while AsianInvestor selected her as one of its 25 most influential women in Asian asset management earlier this year. A photo gallery of the winners is available here.
A UBS spokesperson clarified that the 100 new hires were across wealth management but did not specify how many are in client-facing positions. “We have added 80 client advisers and desk heads as well as four country team heads/regional market managers to our team,” the memo claimed.
A senior private banker from a competitor firm commented that since the past year UBS wealth management in Asia-Pacific has once again started attracting talent, citing the duo from Morgan Stanley as a recent example.
The exodus of staff that took place in the aftermath of the subprime-sparked financial crisis is now a thing of the past for the wealth management division of the Swiss bank, which is also growing assets under management, he added.
