Coutts, private bank, continued its run of top-rank hires with the appointment of Joseph Lam as managing director and head of the private office North Asia, based in Hong Kong. He joins from Merrill Lynch.

Coutts, private bank, continued its run of top-rank hires with the appointment of Joseph Lam as managing director and head of the private office North Asia, based in Hong Kong. The role is a newly created position. Lam joins from Merrill Lynch.

The UK-headquartered bank, part of Royal Bank of Scotland, said the appointment is designed to reaffirm the importance of the ultra night worth client segment in Asia, it said in a statement today.

“In particular, family office needs for succession planning are increasing as first generation wealth matures and Asia undergoes the biggest intergenerational wealth transfer in history,” Coutts said.

Lam will be responsible for creating and implementing strategies to “substantially expand the UHNW business”, the bank said.

Lam reports jointly to Duncan MacIntyre, head of Coutts Private Office and Ignatius K K (Iggy) Chong, head of Hong Kong for Coutts.

“With Asia positioned as the world’s fastest growing wealth management market, and Hong Kong as a centre of excellence for private banking, there are tremendous opportunities, particularly in the UHNW segment,” said MacIntyre. “We have an ambitious growth agenda in Asia, and I am confident that Joseph’s breadth of expertise and knowledge will be a powerful cornerstone to further grow our client-servicing capabilities.”

In his previous role at Merrill Lynch, Lam was a managing director responsible for building the private investment banking group in Hong Kong. Prior to that, he worked at Goldman Sachs, where he covered the UHNW segment in New York and was also responsible for building up Goldman Sachs’ Hong Kong office.

Coutts has made a number of senior appointments in recent months. At the start of November, WealthBriefingAsia exclusively revealed that executive director at UBS' Singapore wealth management business, Jacqueline Chua, resigned to take up a role as head of southeast Asia at Coutts. Chua, who had been at UBS since October 2004, was due to leave in late November and was previously executive director and desk head of the high net worth team in Singapore.

Coutts appointed Michael Mount as managing director within its international business in the UK; in this role, Mount leads Coutts’ Asia, Africa and non-resident Indian teams in London, and will be instrumental in enhancing links between the bank’s Asian and UK operations while also driving its NRI strategy in the UK. He reports dually to Stephen Fletcher, chief operating officer for Coutts & Co, and Ranjit Khanna, head of South East Asia and global NRI.