HSBC Global AM replaces India chief
HSBC Global Asset Management has named Ravi Menon as chief executive for India, replacing Puneet Chaddha, who was appointed CEO for Singapore and Southeast Asia in October.

Menon, currently head of strategy and planning for HSBC India, will take up his new role on February 1 and will report to Pedro Bastos, Asia-Pacific CEO of HSBC Global AM.

Menon joined HSBC’s capital markets business in 1998 and has been a director of HSBC Asset Management Board (India) since last year. An announcement on his replacement will be made in due course.

M&G Real Estate names new Asia CEO, CIO
UK-based M&G Real Estate has promoted Ng Chiang Ling  (pictured below) to succeed Scott Girard as chief executive and chief investment officer for Asia.

Ng, who will assume her new post on April 1, joined the property investment manager, part of M&G Investments, as acquisitions director two years ago. She will remain in Singapore.

She previously worked for 15 years at the private equity real estate division of Goldman Sachs in Singapore and Tokyo.

 

Girard will stay with the company until September to ensure a smooth transition before relocating to Australia for family reasons.

An announcement about Ng’s replacement as acquisitions director will be made in due course. 

“With a substantial queue of capital for investment and a rapidly growing portfolio of assets, we expect to make further announcements in due course,” said Alex Jeffrey, CEO of M&G Real Estate.

The company has $2.9 billion of assets under management in Asia, up from $2.1 billion two years ago.

Barclays exits cash equities in Asia
Barclays has become the latest in a long line of banks to pull out of the unprofitable Asian cash equities business, as fierce competition and high costs make it untenable for all but the largest players and a few boutiques, reports FinanceAsia. Click here for the full story.

The British bank said in an email to clients on Thursday that it is closing cash equity research, sales, and trading as well as convertible bond trading across Asia. It also plans to shutter all of its investment banking operations where it is sub scale across the region including Australia, Taiwan, South Korea and Malaysia.

About 230 people will lose their jobs in Asia as part of a global restructuring resulting in 1,000 redundancies, a person familiar with the matter said. 

Credit Suisse names new Asia-Pacific COO
Credit Suisse’s private banking arm has appointed Christian Huber as chief operating officer for Asia Pacific, effective January 1. Huber, previously COO and co-head of private banking for Credit Suisse in Japan, takes over from Francois Monnet, who was named head of Greater China in December.

Huber is now based in Singapore and reports to Francesco de Ferrari, head of private banking for Asia Pacific. Masahide Ohashi, who was co-head of private banking in Japan with Huber, becomes sole head of private banking in Tokyo.

Bryan Mark comes in as COO of private banking in Japan to replace Huber. He previously worked for HSBC in Tokyo as country COO for Japan.

Huber joined Credit Suisse from UBS in 2004 and has had spells in its advisory, sales, finance and strategy teams.

The appointment is part of a series of managerial changes announced in the wake of a strategic review last year. The bank said in October 2015 that it would allocate more capital to serve wealthy entrepreneurs in the Asia-Pacific region via a dedicated, integrated regional division.

Nissay AM adds Japan fund manager
Shinsuke Takarada has joined Nissay Asset Management, joint-venture partner of London-based investment firm RWC Partners, senior portfolio manager in Tokyo.

In this newly created role, he will help lead PM Yasuaki Kinoshita run the corporate engagement-focused RWC Nissay Japan Focus fund and Dublin-domiciled Japanese Stewardship fund. The Japan Focus Fund launched in March 2015 and has seen inflows of $220 million so far.

Before joining Nissay, Takarada worked at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities specialising in environmental, social and governance issues.

Private credit house EFA hires BNP Paribas exec
Singapore-based EFA Group, an independent asset manager specialising in private credit, has named Jacques-Olivier Thomann as senior adviser. 

Prior to joining EFA, Thomann was general manager of the Switzerland branch at BNP Paribas since 2009, responsible for structured finance.

Before taking over those responsibilities, he held various senior positions at the bank in Geneva, Singapore and Paris, including as global head of commodity finance.

AMP Capital names new investment director
Australian fund house AMP Capital has appointed Andrea McElhinney as investment director in its social and aged care infrastructure team, based in Sydney.

She will assume responsibility for the day-to-day portfolio management of AMP Capital’s Community Infrastructure Fund (CommIF). She takes over from Julie-Anne Mizzi, head of social and aged care infrastructure, who will retain overall accountability for the fund.

McElhinney joined AMP Capital in December 2010 and has been an integral part of the CommIF investment team.

Barings appoints its first head of global equity income
UK-based Baring Asset Management has appointed Darryl Lucas to the newly created role of head of global equity income in London, reporting to head of multi-asset Marino Valensise.

He was most recently head of equity income at rival investment firm Sarasin & Partners and stepped down earlier this month.

Barings said global equity income would sit as a core pillar alongside the equity, multi-asset and specialist fixed income capabilities.

At Sarasin, Lucas had served as a fund manager across a range of dividend mandates including the UK-domiciled Global Dividend and Global Higher Dividend funds.

Prior to this, he was a credit analyst at ABN Amro Asset Management and has also worked as an analyst of financial markets at the Bank of England.

AlixPartners promotes Japan exec to MD
Business advisory firm AlixPartners has promoted Takuro Ueji, an executive in the enterprise improvement practice, to managing director.

This comes as one of 12 promotions to MD on January 1 at the firm, which advises private equity firms and other companies. The other changes were outside Asia.

Ueji is a supply chain specialist with experience in strategic consulting, private equity and commercial banking. He joined the Tokyo office in 2009.

Other people news reported on AsianInvestor in the past week:

Baillie Gifford opens in HK, sets out strategy

Cerulli's Asia head exits for UK research firm

KIC seen seeking stability with new chief

Neuberger replaces Taiwan head, plans onshore funds

Suspected boiler-room accounts frozen in Hong Kong