Wednesday, 14 October 2009
The damage to the City is becoming evident and the dead hand of the State’s holding in RBS and the EU’s restrictions are having their effects even in RBS offshoot in Singapore.
Christina
================================
TELEGRAPH
14.10.09
Hedge fund Coupland Cardiff Asset Management threatens to quit London over EU's Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers
Coupland Cardiff Asset Management, a $300m (£190m) Asia-focused hedge fund, will quit its London base to set up outside Europe if the Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFM) goes ahead as planned.
By Josephine Moulds
In its current form, the Directive could deny European investors access to funds run by non-EU managers.
Alternative investment funds that are based in the EU would also be prevented from holding their assets in non-EU custodian banks. Many countries require funds to use local custodians, so this could scupper funds investing outside the EU.
Coupland Cardiff's chief operating officer Deborah Boyce said: "As we invest exclusively in Asia, this Directive will mean that we have no choice but to relocate outside of the EU should we wish to continue to operate."
She was one of a host of figures from the private equity and hedge fund industry to attack the draft Directive in response to a call for evidence from a UK parliamentary committee.
Private equity group CVC said: "It is so poorly drafted that it creates a new category of risks and inefficiencies".
Among these, it says the protectionist nature of the directive could cause tit-for-tat retaliation from the US and Asia.
Hedge fund Citadel said the Directive could bar EU investors from 91pc of funds.
HSBC, as fund manager and custodian bank, said these limitations could cost European pension funds £21bn a year in lost returns.
It quotes an estimate that the Directive could also lead to up to 20,000 job losses in the UK, as companies flee to less restrictive regimes, such as the US or Switzerland. [Or Singapore - ,- - see next below -cs]
================================
FINANCIAL TIMES 13.10.09
Third of staff at RBS Coutts Singapore quit
By Sundeep Tucker in Hong Kong
RBS Coutts, the international arm of the UK private bank, is scrambling to rebuild its flagship Singapore office after the mass resignation of one-third of its staff in the city-state.
The surprise departures include about 20 key managers, as well as 50 or so support staff, some of whom built up lucrative private banking business with rich Indians and Indonesians.
A lack of annual bonus prospects is believed to be a factor behind some of the resignations at the division, owned by Royal Bank of Scotland, which was rescued by the UK government last year.
Senior moves in the private banking industry are sensitive, due to the possibility of colleagues following departing employees to other institutions and taking clients with them. The destinations of the 70-odd staff remain unknown.
The Singapore and Hong Kong offices employ the bulk of the group’s 510 staff in Asia, a region which accounts for about SFr17bn ($16.6bn) – or a quarter – of RBS Coutts’ funds under management.
RBS Coutts, which confirmed the resignations, said they represented less than 15 per cent of regional headcount. “Staff volatility in the private banking industry is not unusual, especially in Asia,” it said.
While large private banking teams routinely change employers, especially in Asia, industry participants said it was rare for a bank to lose so many staff at the same time.
RBS Coutts said that, although it was ultimately owned by the UK government, it could offer sufficiently attractive pay packages to attract staff. “We expect our compensation packages to be market competitive,” it said.
Rivals are aggressively hiring established private bankers with track records in Asia to expand operations, keen to manage a slice of the wealth being created in the region. Singapore is the centre of the group’s offshore private banking activity in fast-growing areas such as south-east Asia and India.
The Financial Times reported last week that industry veteran Hanspeter Brunner had quit as head of RBS Coutts to join BSI, a Swiss private bank owned by Generali, the Italian insurance group.
One of Mr Brunner’s senior colleagues, Raj Sriram, who led a close-knit team that built up RBS Coutts’ business with wealthy non-resident Indians, is among the departures. Mr Brunner was replaced by Nick Pollard, a long-serving executive of Coutts.
RBS Coutts insisted the departures would not have an impact on clients “who have continued to support us by remaining with us”. The bank added: “Clients know that we have a large team of highly experienced and committed senior bankers who continue to provide the same personalised attention.”
The spokesman said RBS remained in “growth mode” in Asia and planned to replace those who have left and add a further 200 staff to regional headcount by 2015.
Posted by Britannia Radio at 17:05