Major push into South Korea to complement pushes into China, Japan mkts. A recent interview with UBS executives John Fraser and Christof Kutscher provides some valuable insights into the Swiss megabank's approach to Asia's exploding private-wealth market, with particular emphasis on strategy for South Korea, China, Japan and India.

"We've done well on the institutional investor side in Asia in the last two years," Fraser, CEO of UBS Global Asset Management, tells AsianInvestor magazine. "Now we're pushing the wholesale third-party channel."

Private wallet share

UBS will soon announce a major expansion in Korea soon, says Fraser. In China, it recently won regulatory approval for a joint venture with Beijing Securities. And in Japan, UBS plans to rebuild its "domestic capabilities in Japanese equities and fixed income," according to Fraser.

Kutscher, head of UBS Global Asset Management in the Asian-Pacific region, says that recent product launches for its Japanese retail-investment business have raised about $1 billion after just a few months. "Foreign sub-advisors with a reputable name have a good chance in this market."

India is the next Asian-Pacific priority for UBS. "The market size is similar to China's but it's very well managed, so it's harder for a newcomer to be better than the incumbents," says Kutscher.

Australia meanwhile, "offers only limited upside; it's very competitive and already penetrated."

The greatest obstacle to UBS' medium-term goal of increasing Asian-owned assets under management to 15% of UBS' total from 9% now is the difficulty of attracting talented mid-level staffers. It's fairly easy to attract talented people at the managaing-director level, says Fraser. Plugging gaps in middle management is proving more difficult. -FWR

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