UBS gets a new U.K. wealth-management head in wake of Pottage's departure. John Pottage, CEO of UBS' U.K. wealth-management business, has resigned. His departure follows the defection of Emmanuel Fievet, formerly head of U.K. onshore wealth management, to Barclays Wealth.

Fievet will serve as London-Based head of private banking in Barclays' European, Middle Eastern and African region. He replaces Gerard Aquilina, who has been made vice chairman of the firm with responsibility for business development and high-profile client relationships.

Fallout

"In attracting Emmanuel to the firm, we have added both strength and depth to our leadership team at a time when we see great opportunities to expand our footprint across the globe," says Barclays Wealth's CEO Thomas Kalaris.

Andre Cronje, former head of strategy execution for Zurich-based UBS, has been tapped to replace Pottage. He reports to Juerg Zeltner, head of UBS's wealth-management operations in northern, eastern and central Europe -- and, since the departure several months ago of Matthew Brumsen, overall head of the Swiss bank's U.K. operations.

Cronje's expertise is in investing banking, not wealth management.

Fievet's departure is one of many from UBS' U.K. wealth-management arm over the past four or five months. Private clients, apparently disaffected by the bank's losses to mortgage-related investments in the U.S., have pulled about $28 billion from the firm's global wealth-management division so far in 2008.

More than 70 former U.K.-based UBS wealth managers upped stakes for Vestra Wealth, a firm founded by former UBS executive David Scott.

London-based Vestra last week ended a legal dispute with UBS by agreeing not to poach any more staffers from UBS for a year. It has also been barred from boarding former UBS clients for six months or so. (And UBS is offering a 50% fee cut to those of its clients whose advisors have gone over to Vestra.)

Europe

Meanwhile UBS has taken eight wealth-management professionals from Pricewaterhouse Coopers ' wealth-management unit in Birmingham, the U.K.'s second biggest city.

As a result of this liftout, former Pricewaterhouse Coopers department chief Phillip Wood has been named head of UBS Wealth Management in and around Birmingham.

"This is a real coup for UBS," Martin King, director of UBSs Birmingham office, told the Birmingham Post last week. "We see Birmingham as a massive opportunity in the wealth management sector and these appointments will really underpin what we are trying to do in the city., said the appointments had laid down a marker to the rest of the sector."

If the exodus UBS has seen in the U.K. is an indication of European reaction to market topsy-turviness, Middle Eastern wealth managers may want to hold their hats.

Nearly 50% of high-net-worth investors in the United Arab Emirates says they will dump their advisors if conditions get any worse, according to a survey of backed by Barclays Wealth.

The study, based on a poll of 2,300 wealthy investors the world over, suggests that, globally, about a third of wealth-management clients would bolt in the face of increased upheaval.

Johannesburg, South Africa-based Investec Bank has hired Zurich-based Philipp Schmahl away from Goldman Sachs in a bid to meet rising private-client demand in continental Europe.

Schmahl "brings with him extensive experience and will play an important role in developing our unique range of specialist wealth-management services for the benefit of our clients both in Switzerland and across Europe," says Steve Heilbron, head of Investec's global private-banking business.

China

Amsterdam-based ING's private-banking division has tapped Elaine Lai, formerly with Standard Chartered Bank, to lay the groundwork for its wealth-management business in China. Based in Shanghai, she will report to ING Private Banking CEO Philippe Damas.

"China is one of the region's most dynamic and fast-growing markets, with great potential for further growth in wealth management," says Damas. "Elaine's appointment is a significant boost to our business, and signals our commitment to developing this key market."

Lai helped bring London-based Standard Chartered's Chinese wealth-management operations -- mainly a matter of selling structured deposits and offshore investments -- to 13 cities in mainland China.

London-based HSBC has extended its Premier wealth-management services to include Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province in western China.

HSBC's Premier offering lets customers take their accounts, credit history and banking relationships with them wherever they live and work.

"Xi'an plays a pivotal role in China's 'go west' strategy and has achieved impressive growth in recent years," says Richard Yorke, head of HSBC Bank China. "HSBC is committed to further broadening its business scope and network in Xi'an. With the new sub-branch, we are now better positioned to provide international banking services to meet demand in the local market."

Bank of Beijing has named Canada's Bank of Nova Scotia as a partner in a wealth-management joint venture in papers filed with Chinese regulators.

Bank of Beijing Scotiabank Asset Management will design and sell mutual funds to retailers and institutions through the Bank of Beijing branches.

"This is an exciting opportunity for Scotiabank to grow our operations in China by partnering with one of China's leading banks," says Toronto-based Bank of Nova Scotia's international banking head Rob Pitfield.

Although the consultancy McKinsey & Co. predicts that China mutual-fund industry will grow at a clip of 25% a year to hit $1.4-trillion in assets under management by 2016, local fund managers have been battered in a market decline that has seen the Shanghai composite index shed more than 60% of its value since October 2007.

At 20.3%, China had the world's second biggest rate of millionaire population growth in 2007, according to the 2008 World Wealth Report by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch.

Taiwan

However attractive the greater Chinese wealth-management market is, Taiwan is having a tough time. A few weeks ago Taipei-based Fubon Financial said it expected fee income from wealth management to drop by more than 10% this year from last year's $189 million.

"We were hoping to achieve 20% growth this year but that's difficult to meet," Fubon Financial's president Victor Kung told investors last month.

As a result of global market declines, Taiwanese investors -- traditionally a conservative lot -- are ditching out of mutual funds and structured notes in search of instruments they view as safer holdings.

The private-client arms of some Taiwanese banks could see year-over-year declines of as much as 40% this year, according to local media reports.

HSBC sees Taiwan's wealth-management market slowing to about 5% this year, down from 11% through the past five years.

Citigroup plans to close Smith Barney 's Taiwanese operations this year as the U.S. bank revamps its approach to wealth management in Asia.

Among other foreign firms providing wealth-management services there are Merrill Lynch, Standard Chartered and AIG.

And Manulife Financial is about to join them. The insurance company has purchased Taipei-based retail-fund maker Fuhwa Securities Investment Trust.

"Taiwan is a strategically important element of Manulife's regional wealth-management activities owing to its high savings rates and the growing scale of offshore fund products sold locally," says Bob Cook, head of Manulife's Toronto-based Asian operations.

The purchase price wasn't disclosed. Taiwanese regulators forced Taipei-based Yuanta Financial to sell Fuhwa because of rules that forbid Taiwanese companies from owning more than one investment-management company. -FWR

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