Nomura has appointed Lee Chee Pin as head of financial products and solutions for wealth management for Asia ex-Japan as it continues to build out its private wealth arm, the Japanese bank said on Tuesday.
Lee will be based in Singapore and reports to Nobuhiro Sano, head of wealth management for Asia ex Japan. The role is a new one for the firm and Lee will oversee trading and dealing across wealth management in the region, Nomura said in a release.
He will be tasked with driving closer collaboration between wealth management and global markets, in particular the cross-selling of structured products such as swaps and derivatives to the firm's wealthy clients. Those products are already available to the firm's institutional clients.
Private wealth is booming in Asia and Nomura, like many other banks, is looking to tap that growth, making a push to expand in Asia outside of its established base in Japan. According to a joint report by RBC Wealth Management and Capgemini, Asia Pacific overtook North America to become the region with the highest high-net worth population at 4.69 million in 2014.
Strategic hires
The firm has made a number of strategic hires. In January, Nomura hired Amanda Chen as deputy head of its wealth management division for Asia ex-Japan. Chen was previously head of strategic transaction group at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, where she collaborated with other divisions in the bank to serve rich clients in Asia. She was also previously head of private wealth management Singapore at Morgan Stanley.
Last month, Nomura hired Harry Ng as its Singapore-based head of wealth planning strategy and solutions and head of Nomura Trust Company.
Lee joins Nomura from Island Asset Management, a boutique fund management company investing in Asian small-caps, where he was the chief executive officer. He started his career as a foreign exchange trader at Chemical Bank before joining Bank of America, where his last role was head of global foreign exchange, Asia.
He also previously worked at Guoco Management as head of group Treasury.
Nomura is looking to replicate its wealth management business model in Japan in the rest of Asia, but it is competing against the likes of far bigger players such as UBS and Credit Suisse in the region.
In a market where scale is important, Nomura integrated its Japan Wealth Management group with its Asia wealth management business in June last year.
