More than two years after it rebranded, the wealth management group is continuing to expand via acquisitions and named a senior hire this week.

Ever since the old Indosuez name was brought back by French parent Crédit Agricole Group for its wealth management arm, the business has been in expansion mode, recently acquiring Asian and European businesses, and naming hires.

Earlier this week Indosuez Wealth Managementappointed Julien Collin as head of markets, investment and structuring in Singapore. In his new role, Collin reports to Pierre Masclet, Asia chief executive of Indosuez Wealth Management, and Arjan de Boer, head of markets, investment and structuring, based in Hong Kong. He replaces Simon Ip, who moved to Investment Advisory, a spokesperson confirmed to this publication when asked about the matter.

Collin takes charge of providing global asset allocation advice, investment solutions and recommendations aimed at ultra-high net worth clients, serviced by Singapore-based relationship managers. The appointment means he leads 35 professionals in Singapore, covering areas ranging from foreign exchange and precious metals through to real estate and credit. An employee of Crédit Agricole since 2007, Collin held a variety of roles. In 2014, he joined Indosuez Wealth Management as head of markets and investment solutions in Paris. He moved East to Singapore in 2017, holding the post of acquisition programme director to steer the integration of CIC private banking operations in Asia. 

The move comes shortly after the firm completed its acquisition of 94.1 per cent of Italian wealth manager Banca Leonardo. In December last year, meanwhile, it put finishing touches on its purchase of Crédit Industriel et Commercial’s private banking operations in Singapore and the entire paid-up share capital of CIC Investors Services in Hong Kong. That transaction brought Indosuez WM’s total assets under management in the Asia region to around €12 billion ($14.3 billion), as reported at the time. Its employee base in Asia also increased from 250 to more than 400 staff. That deal allowed CIC clients to benefit from both Indosuez’s Hong Kong and global multi-booking centres as well as discretionary portfolio management, advisory mandates, private equity, wealth structuring and corporate solutions capabilities.

These developments take place at a time when the firm has reportedly stated it wants to boost AuM in Asia around 8 to 10 per cent in 2018. Separately, the bank said it aims to keep its cost-to-income ratio this year at under 80 per cent, similar to where it was in 2017.

The M&A-driven expansion, name change and senior hires contrast with the stance of some Europe-headquartered financial groups, such as Societe Generale, Barclays, ABN AMRO and Royal Bank of Scotland, which have sold Asian wealth businesses to local players such as DBS and Oversea-Chinese Banking Group, or, in the case of RBS, selling Asian assets to Switzerland’s Union Bancaire Privée. In some of these cases, the firms were under pressure to slim costs and get out of sub-scale businesses deemed insufficiently profitable.

But for the time being at Indosuez Wealth Management, growth appears to be on the menu.