Private Banker of the Year

Vincent Chui head of Wealth Management, Asia Pacific, Morgan Stanley PWM Asia

MORGAN STANLEY PRIVATE WEALTH MANAGEMENT ASIA

Considering that Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management Asia’s clientele in the region includes business owners and entrepreneurs who count themselves among the upper echelons of the UHNW spectrum, providing institutional-level capabilities via the private banking platform is expected. And it is here where Morgan Stanley PWM Asia delivers.

The bank’s private wealth clients benefit from the same institutional platform, content, access and services that Morgan Stanley offers its most heavyweight global institutional clients.

Responsibility for forging collaboration between the private and investment banks falls with Morgan Stanley’s Strategic Advisory Solutions (SAS) team, exemplifying the group’s dedication to the “one bank” concept. The holistic approach seeks to provide wealth management clients with comprehensive access to the US lender’s best-in-class capital market offerings and investment banking capabilities, ranging from initial public offerings, and single-share financing, to mergers & acquisitions.

Since the Wall Street bank is a research powerhouse, this is naturally an area where its Asian private bank clients enjoy the fruits of Morgan Stanley’s integrated platform. The lender’s research function houses world-renowned analysts, strategists and economists who together deliver timely, in-depth and insightful investment views and recommendations to Morgan Stanley PWM Asia clients.

Globally, the team covers about 3,600 stocks, or nearly 90% of the MSCI World index. On a regional basis, Morgan Stanley covers 1,400 individual equities, or around 90% of the market capitalisation of the MSCI Asia benchmark. This research forms a robust intellectual base on which the private bank can develop discretionary mandates and make informed recommendations to clients through its advisory platform.

These interconnections are brought to life through the SAS team’s efforts to engage UHNWI clients in

“We are honoured to be recognised by Asian Private Banker for the integrated platform we offer to our UHNW clients, particularly entrepreneurs and asset owners. In Asia, UHNW clients demand and expect institutional services, products and ideas.

To provide the customised solutions suitable to their needs we are able to draw on the strength of the resources and our internal partnership with Investment Banking, Capital Markets, Research and Institutional Sales and Trading. When a client works with Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management Asia, they are working with the House of Morgan Stanley.”

- Vincent Chui, head of Wealth Management, Asia Pacific, Morgan Stanley PWM Asia

a strategic dialogue regarding their corporate and capital requirements. That dialogue works both ways: investment banking clients are regularly referred to the wealth management business, and vice versa.

The tight-knit nature of Morgan Stanley’s different platforms proved advantageous during the market volatility seen in the region in 2021. Morgan Stanley PWM was one of the first private banks in the region to sound the alarm on liquidity issues at highly leveraged Chinese developers, a view which in part was guided by the firm’s debt and equity capital market insight and expertise. Such visibility and first-hand sector knowledge would not be possible at most private banks in Asia-Pacific.

According to figures shared with Asian Private Banker during the awards judging process, revenues derived from Morgan Stanley’s integrated platform grew at a rate not seen elsewhere in the region, while client assets derived via this channel rose at an impressive pace.

That is why Morgan Stanley PWM Asia has been deemed the winner of Asian Private Banker’s Best Private Bank – Integrated Platform for 2021.

Tee Fong Seng CEO, Pictet Wealth Management Asia

PICTET WEALTH MANAGEMENT

The beauty of a pure private banking model lies in the ability to provide clients with the best of a wealth manager’s strengths and in the alignment of client and bank interests.

Founded in 1805 in Geneva, Pictet has always run with an independent private partnership model and has only had 45 partners since then, each with average tenure of over 20 years. The long tenure and low turnover rate has guaranteed the stability of its management — the secret recipe for cross-generational success in wealth management, having been through wars, political upheavals and economic crises.

The absence of external stakeholders and the insistence on seeking pure organic growth has guaranteed that the purpose of the bank has remained unchanged over the years — which is to build responsible partnerships with clients, colleagues, communities and the companies in which the bank invests.

In 2020, as part of its Ambition 2025, Pictet identified The Rise of Asia as one of the seven global themes, that will have major implications for investors, clients and the financial industry. Pictet sees Asia both as a strategic asset class attracting a greater portion of international investment and as a region for the bank’s business expansion.

Despite the economic uncertainties brought by the pandemic in Asia, Pictet achieved steady growth with record highs across multiple key business metrics in 2021: an over 30% YoY increase in AUM (as of September 2021 annualised) and a similar rise in net new money (NNM) inflows, strong double-digit expansion in revenue with a tilt towards developing recurring income, and a mid-single digit growth in the number of client accounts, despite the difficulties in conducting physical meetings. Such business performance tops the chart for pure plays and ranks amongst the best for all private banks operating in Asia in the said year.

The ability to ride the tides stems from Pictet’s focus on being an investment-led service company with an industry high of over 50% of its Asian wealth management AUM in managed solutions across mandates and funds, as well

“We are honoured to receive this Award from Asian Private Banker and I am truly proud of all the Pictet Wealth Management Asia team has achieved in the past two years despite the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This award is strong testimony to the collective success in accelerating the growth of our franchise in line with the Pictet Group’s long-term ambition for Asia, while firmly keeping to the guiding principles on which Pictet has been built for over two centuries.

It speaks volumes of our team’s dedication and focus on staying true to Pictet’s independence and the alignment of interest with our clients, built upon the bedrock of the group’s unique private partnership model. It vindicates the focus on maintaining Pictet’s entrepreneurial spirit and agility while navigating new ways of serving clients, and most importantly the commitment to building longterm partnerships with clients through our investment leadership.

We look forward to another successful year in 2022 and many years to come!”

- Tee Fong Seng, CEO, Pictet Wealth Management Asia

as having leading alternative advisory capabilities — the firm also has one of the highest alternative assets penetration rates of private banks in Asia.

The firm’s investment advisory team combines inhouse expertise and open architecture to achieve the best outcomes for clients who are able to access products, services and strategies through discretionary or advisory mandates.

On the back of its heritage of being a trusted private bank for over two centuries, Pictet managed to shine in an era of uncertainty, bringing its investments and intergenerational wealth management expertise to wealthy families in Asia and delivering a record year in 2021.

Pictet Wealth Management is Asian Private Banker’s Best Private Bank – Pure Play for 2021.

CREDIT SUISSE

The Asia Pacific has always been a vibrant region for wealth management with countries at different economic development phases, each growing at a different pace. In-depth knowledge around clients’ product appetite, regulatory development as well as the local business environment is essential to establish a successful wealth management business model that speaks to HNW clients in the target markets.

After rushing into digitalisation in 2020, multiple private banks began to establish and expand onshore wealth management offerings in APAC over the past year since stringent quarantine and travel restrictions imposed by various authorities began to take a toll on relationships between onshore clients and offshore bankers.

Credit Suisse has long recognised the need to be the pioneer in digital banking offerings and to grow its onshore presence even before the global pandemic outbreak. Such vision allows the bank to harvest significant top and bottom-line growth in APAC, with a substantial amount of revenue generated from the HNW segment, despite facing investment headwinds in multiple markets over the past 12 months.

The Swiss bank entered the wealth management sector in Korea in partnership with a local player and opened an onshore office in Thailand in 2016. The firm onboarded a number of senior talents for its onshore India business and continued to prepare talents and infrastructure needed to bring its wealth management business into onshore China.

A well planned and executed onshoring exercise is crucial to HNW business as it opens doors for the private bank to meet new clients at the earlier stage of wealth creation. The bank’s perseverance has been rewarded with an accelerating growth on the bank’s share of onshore AUM over the past few years.

Benjamin Cavalli head of Wealth Management Asia Pacific, Credit Suisse

“It is an honour to be recognised as the Best Private Bank – Asia Pacific HNW in this inaugural category. This accolade acknowledges our strong capabilities for clients in this important segment across Asia Pacific. We are steadfastly committed to delivering the highest standard of wealth management services to clients and their families, and provide them with access to best-in-class investment solutions, insightful and timely market outlook and investment ideas, and the convenience of banking with us through our digital wealth management channels.

We are fully dedicated and passionate to work in close partnership with clients and support them as they grow their assets in both their personal and corporate worlds. ”

- Benjamin Cavalli, head of Wealth Management Asia Pacific, Credit Suisse

Credit Suisse demonstrated a systematic business approach in segmenting and tallying the number of HNW clients in the region and identifying this group as the core segment of growth. In addition to RMs, HNW clients are mostly positioned to serve by the bank’s state-ofthe-art digital services with select access to investment and product specialists. In terms of product access, HNW clients can access most offerings of the firm — including bespoke financing, advisory and discretionary mandates, as well as wealth planning services.

With a clearly identified business strategy, an ambitious onshoring plan and pioneering digital banking offering, the judging panel is convinced that Credit Suisse is Asian Private Banker’s Best Private Bank – Asia Pacific HNW for 2021.

Vincent Chui head of Wealth Management, Asia Pacific, Morgan Stanley PWM Asia

MORGAN STANLEY PRIVATE WEALTH MANAGEMENT ASIA

The performance of Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management (PWM) Asia both in terms of the top-line business and AUM growth would have been impressive enough in a sanguine year for markets. But that it arrived during a punishing period for both Chinese equities and high-yield bonds was nothing short of remarkable.

The US bank’s efforts in preserving and growing the wealth of its regional UHNW and asset owners clientele — the bulk of which have more than US$100 million in investable assets per head — comes down to proactive, effective risk mitigation; astute directional calls on the market; and an unrelenting drive to deepen client relationships as well as forge new ones despite ongoing COVID-19 restrictions.

According to figures shared with the judging panel during the awards process, revenues derived from Morgan Stanley PWM Asia’s UHNW clientele jumped by a magnitude not seen anywhere else in the regional private banking industry, while client assets too increased sharply.

That partly reflected the dedication with which Morgan Stanley PWM Asia — a Greater China behemoth focused on the offshore hub of Hong Kong with a fast growing Singapore branch — strove to maintain client interaction and prospecting despite travel lockdowns in the region. Through a combination of versatility and additional safety measures, the Morgan Stanley PWM Asia bankers were among the most pro-active in the industry when it came to regional travel in 2021.

The bank signed up a proportion of new clients during the year that was nothing short of breathtaking compared to some of its regional peers — a feat that is all the more impressive given Morgan Stanley PWM Asia’s smaller number of RMs compared to some peers and its strict standard on client selection to safeguard franchise risk.

But perhaps more important was the bank’s effort to prioritise risk mitigation. Morgan Stanley PWM Asia is well known as an equity-minded powerhouse on account of the firm’s global leadership in equity trading and research.

“We are honoured to be recognised by Asian Private Banker for our dedication to the Asian UHNW business. Such clients are typically highly successful entrepreneurs, businesses and asset owners who expect services and products of an institutional standard.

At Morgan Stanley, we treat institutional clients and UHNW clients alike, given their AUM, sophistication and expectations, and strive to provide differentiated institutional ideas and solutions suitable to their needs.”

- Vincent Chui, head of Wealth Management, Asia Pacific, Morgan Stanley PWM Asia

That position could leave client balances more vulnerable at times when the region’s stock markets buckle, as they did in China in 2021. Astutely, however, the bank decided to take a cautious view on Chinese A-shares at the start of 2021, a call that served as an excellent demonstration of Morgan Stanley’s heavyweight research capabilities at the group level.

The bank was able to spare its clients the worst of the Chinese property developers carnage when the highly leveraged high-yield issuers hit a liquidity crisis, urging them to exit or hedge the bonds earlier than many of its peers and slashing loan-to-value.

Finally, Morgan Stanley PWM Asia in 2021 proved itself capable of blasting through its own ambitious internal targets — another facet of the bank’s pitch that impressed Asian Private Banker’s judging panel. Demonstrating this, 2021 marked the first year of the bank’s three-year “PWM 2.0” transformation project. Despite a year of stomach-churning volatility in the markets, the bank was able to tick off 50% of the business objectives it had set itself for the full three years in a profound signal of intent and momentum.

For those reasons, Morgan Stanley PWM Asia is Asian Private Banker’s Best Private Bank – Asia-Pacific UHNW for 2021.