Weekly roundup of people news, Nov 9
TH REAL ESTATE HIRES FROM INVESCO FOR NEW FUND
TH Real Estate, part of US asset manager Nuveen, has poached Alan Wong from Invesco as an assistant fund manager to help run its new Asia Pacific Cities Fund.
He will cover the whole Asia Pacific region across multiple sectors, including office, retail and industrial, reporting to Louise Kavanagh, Asia-Pacific head of real estate funds management.
Wong started in the new role on October 17. He was previously a senior associate working on Invesco’s open-ended Asia real estate fund, which Kavanagh had set up and run before leaving to join Nuveen in November last year. There are no plans to add further hires at this time, said the spokeswoman.
Wong had been at Invesco for four years before leaving in May this year, according to his LinkedIn page.
TH Real Estate’s new open-ended strategy launched on November 8, having made its first investment and secured its first clients, and aims to raise $2 billion or more over five years.
TIAA, Nuveen’s parent institution, has made an initial co-investment of $200 million. Commitments have also come from TIAA’s unlisted real estate investment trust and a German institution, a spokeswoman told AsianInvestor.
The fund's first asset is 183 Clarence Street, an office building being developed in Sydney’s central business district. The spokeswoman declined to specify the size of the investment.
Nuveen’s launch comes amid rising global investor demand for core property assets in Asia, with other firms also looking to tap this interest. PGIM is readying its own product, and BlackRock would not rule out doing so, said John Saunders, the latter’s Asia-Pacific head of real estate.
INVESTEC AM APPOINTS GREATER CHINA HEAD OF ADVISER BUSINESS
Investec Asset Management has hired Marco Tang as head of the adviser business for Greater China.
He joined the company on November 5 and reports to Eric Fu, country head for Greater China. Both are based in Hong Kong.
Tang was previously Shanghai-based head of retail business for China at US fund house Neuberger Berman.
Investec said Tang's role was newly created, but it previously had a head of the adviser business for Asia, Beonca Yip, who left the fund house in August. It is understood Yip won't be directly replaced, and Tang has taken up some of her previous responsibilities.
Investec’s Greater China adviser business had previously been handled by other teams, a spokeswoman said.
Tang left Neuberger Berman in October and the fund house plans to find a replacement, a company spokesperson told AsianInvestor.
M&G NAMES HK INTERMEDIARY CHANNELS DIRECTOR
UK fund house M&G Investments has hired Heather Lei from Janus Henderson to a newly created role as director of intermediary channels for Hong Kong.
Starting in November, she reports to William Tan, head of intermediary channels for Asia. The regional financial intermediaries team covered the Hong Kong market before her appointment, an M&G spokeswoman said.
Lei was previously associate director of financial intermediaries at Janus Henderson and her last day there was October 31, a spokewoman for the asset manager said.
Angel Lee, senior director of financial intermediaries, will cover Lei’s responsibilities in the interim with support from the Hong Kong sales team, while the firm seeks a replacement, said the spokeswoman.
JP MORGAN PB APPOINTS ASIA HEAD OF CLIENT INVESTMENT STRATEGY
Alex Wolf has joined JP Morgan Private Bank as the Asia head of client investment strategy. The firm declined to provide his date of joining.
Wolf will work with investment solutions teams locally and the client investment team globally to coordinate and deliver investment thought leadership to advisers and clients, a media statement said.
He was previously a senior emerging markets economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments conducting economic and geopolitical research.
Based in Hong Kong, he reports to David Stubbs, JP Morgan Private Bank’s head of client investment strategy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
A spokeswoman for JP Morgan said Wolf’s role was newly created, but declined to provide details on how these responsibilities had been handled before.
A spokeswoman for Aberdeen Standard said Wolf left the firm in October and his responsibilities have been taken up by members of the Aberdeen Standard Investments Research Institute. “No direct replacement has been named yet,” she added.
LJ PARTNERSHIP HIRES REAL ESTATE SPECIALIST
LJ Partnership, a London-based independent investment firm, has appointed Neill O’Brien in Hong Kong as managing director of its investment and advisory subsidiary, Guggenheim Investment Advisors.
O’Brien was previously with property services firm JLL in Hong Kong and has a decade of experience counselling Asian clients on real estate.
LJ Partnership, which will rebrand as Alvarium Investments in the first quarter of 2019, is looking to manage a greater share of the growing pool of Asian wealth and to help investors look for investment opportunities globally, a statement said.
O'Brien reports to Joshua Green and Gideon King, partners at LJ Partnership.
A spokeswoman for LJ Partnership declined to comment on who was handling O'Brien's responsibilities previously.
JLL did not respond to AsianInvestor queries on when O’Brien left or whether a replacement had been named.
HSBC PB ADDS PRODUCT SPECIALIST
HSBC Private Banking has hired Stephen Sheung from UBS as product specialist on the sales team in Hong Kong.
Sheung, who started his role in August, focuses on the Hong Kong and China markets, an HSBC PB spokesman said.
The role is newly created, he added. HSBC PB did not respond to queries on whether anyone previously covered Sheung's responsibilities or whom he reports to.
Sheung was most recently a client investment specialist at UBS, according to his LinkedIn profile. The Swiss bank did not respond to AsianInvestor queries on when he left the Swiss bank or whether a replacement had been appointed.