People Moves
Barclays Wealth Hires Advisor To Target South Asia HNW Families
Barclays Wealth, the UK wealth manager, has recruited a London-based managing director and wealth advisor to focus on high net worth families from South Asia.
Deepak Malhotra will join the firm in January 2012 and will work closely with Jonathan Burt, head of key clients, and Andrew Tailby-Faulkes, who joined the firm earlier this year to advise clients including entrepreneurs, private business owners and family offices.
Before Barclays Wealth, Malhotra worked for the past five years at Grant Thornton. Prior to this, he worked at Deloitte and is a chartered tax adviser and chartered accountant.
“I have known Deepak for a number of years and he brings a great deal of knowledge and experience of supporting entrepreneurial clients - he is incredibly well-connected and is seen as a leader in the South Asian advisory space,” said Rob Withecombe, head of wealth advisory.
It is the latest move by the UK-listed firm to ramp up its numbers with a senior hire, as part of its five year growth plan, Project Gamma. The expansion will see relationship managers double to around 1,300 through a £350 million investment spearheaded by chief executive Tom Kalaris.
Earlier this month Barclays Wealth confirmed it will add over 20 senior private bankers to its Greater China division within the next twelve months, growing its ranks by a half and adding a desk based in Singapore. Pakorn Boonya-kurkul, head of North Asia at the bank told WealthBriefingAsia in an interview that the bankers will be brought in at director and managing director level, and that he has already identified some of them.
The new recruits will join its existing ranks of 100 relationship managers in Asia-Pacific. Currently Greater China clients are served mainly out of Hong Kong, but the bank plans to add a Singapore-based Greater China desk too.
Over the last few years the bank has built up its ranks of more senior relationship managers in Asia. Around half of its bankers in Hong Kong are at managing director or director level and have more than 15 years wealth management experience.
