The joint venture by the Swiss and Thailand banks is an example of the kind of joint ventures that a number of Western private banks have inked with local Asian players over recent years.

SCB Julius Baer, the wealth management joint venture between Julius Baer and Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank, has appointed Joseph Caceres as head of investment advisory and solutions.

Caceres is responsible for the growth, development, and strategy of SCB Julius Baer’s best-in-class quality investment solutions and product offerings.

With nearly two decades of work experience in finance, banking, and international investment management, Caceres has held various senior leadership positions in investment advisory and solutions at HSBC Private Bank Singapore for more than 13 years. 

Recently, Caceres was head of managed investment solutions and alternative investments for Southeast Asia. He was responsible for investment mandates and alternative investments spanning hedge funds, private equity, private credit and real estate for institutional, high net worth and ultra-HNW clients, across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. 

Before this, Caceres was with Deutsche Bank in Singapore, Hong Kong, and New York. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Georgetown University in Washington DC.

Separately, SCB Julius Baer stated that it predicts that markets will remain supported by government and central bank intervention, as well as recover with the development of a COVID-19 vaccine. 

“We believe that the global economic recovery is on track, led by strong monetary and fiscal stimulus and later by a cyclical recovery on the back of a vaccine. We continue to be constructive on equities but highly selective, particularly as we enter the more volatile weeks ahead of and during the US Presidential elections,” Caceres said in a statement. 

“We believe longer-term structural shifts in the way we live and work will continue to drive the technology sector including across digital infrastructure, fintech, and healthcare. We advise clients to stay invested but remain well-diversified and have a preference geographically towards the US and China,” he said. 

A number of European firms have built joint ventures with Asian players as a way of obtaining rapid entry into a market that might otherwise take more time and resources to carry out directly. Others include the Schroders JV with Bank of Communications in China; DBS Bank and DBS Vickers Securities (Thailand); and Liechtenstein’s VP Bank's joint wealth management platform in Hong Kong with Hywin Wealth Management (China). In 2018 the Swiss Bankers Association called for medium-sized Swiss banks, which lacked some of the footprint of the top-tier players, to forge local partnerships as a way of tapping into the region’s fast-growing wealth. In August this year, Julius Baer partnered with Beijing International Wealth Management Institute, the first foreign organisation to do so.