HSBC makes key appointments in its wealth and personal banking investment unit

Date: 13 Jan 2021

Citywealth

HSBC has announced three senior appointments in the Wealth and Personal Banking investment unit. Effective immediately, Willem Sels is appointed Global Chief Investment Officer, Private Banking and Wealth Management, while Jan-Marc Fergg is appointed Global Head of Wealth Products, ESG and Mutual Funds, and Patrick Boumalham takes on the role of Global Head of UHNW Solutions.

Willem Sels will chair the Global Investment Committee and have functional oversight of all market strategists, content experts and asset allocation specialists globally within Private Banking and Wealth Management. Since joining HSBC in 2009, he was a Fixed Income Strategist and the Global Chief Market Strategist for Private Banking, a role he held for the past five years.Prior to HSBC, Willem was Global Head of Credit Strategy at Dresdner Kleinwort and spent seven years at Goldman Sachs in fixed income, economics and commodities research. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and an MSc from the University of Louvain (Belgium).

Jan-Marc Fergg will be responsible for the products distributed to clients in our Jade, Premier and Personal banking flagship segments, as well as leading the teams working on Funds and ETFs for Wealth Management and Private Banking. He will also further develop Wealth and Private Banking’s ESG offering, which will see continued investment as a strategic priority area for our business in the coming months. Prior to HSBC, Jan-Marc spent 20 years at UBS in a variety of senior roles.

Patrick Boumalham will further enhance the products and solutions the bank offers to its UHNW clients, to help them meet their sophisticated investment needs, and build out the Family Office proposition. He will be responsible for managing a dedicated team of regional UNHW specialists across public and private markets. Patrick has been Global Head of Markets Products within the Private Bank since 2017, having joined HSBC Global Markets in 2005 and subsequently holding senior Investment Solutions Sales roles covering markets across the UK and Europe.

Commenting on these appointments within her team, Lavanya Chari, Global Head of Investments and Products Group, Private Banking and Wealth Management, said: “These appointments emphasise our continued investment in market analysis, UHNW and ESG. HSBC takes its ESG commitments seriously, and alongside our climate ambition aims[1], we know that many of our clients are active in this space or require support to transition their business to a low carbon business model. In parallel, we are aligning our investment and product activities to further enhance the service we provide to all of our customer segments in Wealth and Personal Banking, from personal banking through to our growing UHNW business.”

The Wealth and Personal Banking division was created last year, when HSBC combined retail banking and wealth management, asset management, insurance and private banking to become one of the world’s largest global wealth managers with over US$1.418 trillion in wealth balances as at the second quarter of 2020, up 3 per cent year on year. Within that, Global Private Banking, which will continue to operate as a distinct business unit and brand, grew its client assets to US$353 billion, reaching US$5.3bn of net new money in the first half of 2020.