Matten joins PwC

Mar 26, 2003

Chris Matten is to join PwC when he leaves Temasek at the end of the month.

Chris Matten, managing director of the corporate stewardship division at Singapore state investment company Temasek has announced that he will be joining PricewaterhouseCoopers. His last day at Temasek is March 31 and he will take a month off before officially starting at PwC on May 1.

At PwC he will join the firm's regional financial risk managment (FRM) practice, advising clients on issues such as capital managament, shareholder value and all the issues thrown up by the new Basel capital accord (Basel 2). His clients will be banks and financial services companies in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Brunei. He will work closely with Pedro Garcia, executive director of PwC's FRM practice.

"We welcome Mr Matten onboard," says Gautam Banerjee, partner of PwC Singapore. "His extensive knowledge in capital management will complement the expertise of Mr Garcia and his team in the aread of market, credit and operational risk."

It is unclear if Matten resigned from Temasek or if his contract had expired. According to Temasek spokeswoman, Eva Ho, he will not be replaced as his job has essentially disappeared in a shuffling of the internal divisons within the company.

According to Ho, the corporate stewardship divison which he ran has been merged with the direct investment division (called Temasek Capital). The merged entity has then been split into three separate divisons called "strategic development thrusts". The first thrust is in global investments in transport and logistics. The second thrust is in Asian services investments including regional telecom, media, financial services and property. The third thrust is in local Asean, non Singaporean corporate investments.

Matten joined Temasek in May 2000 from Overseas-Chinese Banking Corporation, Singapore's smallest bank where he was the CFO. While at OCBC he earned many plaudits for handling the bank's financing and merger activites, including the acquisition of Keppel Capital Holdings. He is a world expert on bank capital issues having, literally, written the definitive textbook on the subject.