London-based structured product specialist Blue Sky Asset Management appointed James Chu as managing director and chief investment officer. Before joining BSAM, he spent four years at American Express Bank as director head of product and business development, investment and financial products, focusing on the high net worth requirements of customers within the private bank globally.

Meanwhile, Citi Property Investors, a real estate investment arm of US banking group Citi, appointed Evelyne Dubé as head of European institutional marketing and client relations. Ms Dubé joins CPI from Triton Advisors, a London-based private equity group.

May proved a torrid month for Swiss bank UBS. A large number of staff at the UK operation of UBS Wealth Management resigned to join a new wealth management business set up by a former UBS employee, David Scott. Around 18 client-facing staff and around 30 support staff have resigned from UBS in London but are being asked to work their notice.

In addition, the Taunton office of UBS Wealth Management has also suffered defections, although it remains open for the time being.

The new business, Vestra Wealth, has been set up in the City of London and has backing from Goldman Sachs. Meanwhile, Amanda Lyons and executive director Philip Stevens, who work as a team, left UBS and are moving to Rothschild. The pair are joining as client directors later this year. They will be UK based and will report to Gary Powell, chief executive. Tiffany Troxel, a lead producer at UBS in London, has also resigned. Ms Troxel is joining Merrill Lynch in London as a senior client advisor, reporting to Nick Tucker. She is believed to be amongst the top five producers at UBS in the UK. Senior advisor, Mark Chamberlin moved to Credit Suisse where he was a director.

Francoise Marcus also resigned and is thought to be joining David Scott’s Vestra firm.

DPZ Capital, an investment management boutique, appointed Mike Langstone from HSBC Investments where he was head of advisory investments. Mr Langstone will be joining his ex-colleagues from investment firm Le Masurier James and Chinn where he was an investment manager and director. Previously, Mr Langstone worked in London for Laing & Cruickshank where he was head of international equity and currency trading.

Bank Julius Baer appointed a new management team at Julius Baer International, its London-based investment management firm servicing UK and international private clients. Daniel Gerber has taken over as the new chief executive officer, succeeding Juerg Berger, who has stepped down from this position to focus on his roles as market head UK and a member of the board of directors of Julius Baer International. Mr Gerber was previously deputy chief executive Officer.

The Investment Management Association, the trade association representing the bulk of the asset management industry in the UK, appointed Matthew Stemp, head of UBS Global Asset Management in the UK, to its board. Meanwhile, the IMA said that John Trojano, head of global institutional business at Schroders, the UK investment firm, has stepped down from the IMA board.

UK-based Heartwood Wealth Management recruited Noland Carter, former chief investment office of Barclays and Rothschild Private Banking businesses, to be its chief investment officer and head of its investment management division. He will also be a director and member of the company’s senior leadership team.

More recently he has been chief executive of Rothschild Private Management and Global CIO of Rothschild Private Banking and Trust. Mr  Carter left Rothschild last June.

HSBC Private Bank appointed Richard Goodier as an associate director in its Manchester office. He joined from Rensburg Sheppard Investment Management, where he was a private client manager. The bank also appointed Stephen Skelly as the new head of Global Wealth Solutions for Europe. He was global chief executive of Rothschild Trust until last June and was previously head of Wealth Structuring at Barclays Private Bank  

Brown Shipley's fund management arm Solus has rejigged its investment team line-up following Peter Botham's recent appointment as chief investment officer following the acquisition of investment boutique Bollin Asset Management. Mr Botham took over from Kevin Doran, who had been CIO since July 2004 and is now focusing totally on managing and developing the Solus Sterling Bond fund.

Paul Harwood will become fund manager of UK Special Situations. Mr Harwood has been an investment consultant to Brown Shipley since 2002. The Solus UK Flagship fund will continue to be managed by John Smith.

London and Johannesburg-listed Investec added to its financial intermediaries team in its Channel Islands subsidiary with the appointment of Lisa Norman and Liz Tanguy. Working with David Fitch, Marc Krombach and Lorraine Henry, they will be based in Guernsey providing services to intermediary and corporate clients. Ms Norman joins from Barclays Wealth, where she was associate director and led the intermediary team within Guernsey.

Former NewStar marketing director Rob Page is joining another UK asset manager, Liontrust. He takes over from Jonathan Harbottle, who becomes European sales director.

Rothschild Private Banking and Trust appointed Martin Pollock as managing director of its trust business in Guernsey. He currently has that role at Rothschild's Bermuda office. As a result, there will be a realignment of the management team in Guernsey. Chris Ward, one of the existing co-heads of the business, will take on a new role with responsibility for key clients while remaining on the local management committee. Luis Gonzales, the other co-head, will leave Rothschild.

UK-based Thames River Capital has made two appointments to its global credit team: Donal McGettigan joins as an economist and Felix Martin as an investment analyst. The team is headed by Bernt Tallaksen.

Before joining Thames River, Mr Martin was country economist for Kosovo within the Europe and Central Asia department of the World Bank. Mr McGettigan joins the company from EMSO Partners, Citi Alternative Investments.

Private client wealth management firm City Quilter has appointed Chris Beckett as head of research and senior vice president at its London office. He joins from CCLA Investment Management, where he was a fund manager. The bank also appointed Ciara Collins as an investment executive in its Belfast, Northern Ireland, office. She joins from local stockbrokers Cunningham Coates where she was an assistant investment manager

London-listed independent wealth manager Rathbone Brothers has appointed Paul Stockton to the board as finance director, joining from the Life Division (South) of the Pearl Group.

Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch appointed Charles O’Ferrall as chief operating officer of Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch (UK). Mr O’Ferrall joins from Alta Advisers, the family office of Hans Rausing, where he has worked as COO since 1996.

In another blow for one of Europe's largest hedge-fund groups, GLG Partners lost its second senior executive in about a month. Soraya Chabarek, in charge of marketing in the Middle East for the firm, resigned. Ms Chabarek's resignation follows the loss of star trader Greg Coffey, who managed GLG's largest fund. At least some of Mr Coffey's team of about a dozen have resigned.

RBC Wealth Management, the wealth management arm of Royal Bank of Canada, says it is hunting for UK wealth managers to step up its UK operations. RBC’s latest recruit, Konstantinos Dedes, joined on 1 May and was previously employed at Julius Baer.

UK-based wealth management head hunter Harry Pilkington has resigned from Armstrong International. He is believed to be joining international head hunter Heidrick & Struggles to strengthen its wealth management offering in its London office.

Goldman Sachs has appointed Kevin Shone, a principal client partner at Coutts’ Manchester office and one of the firm’s biggest producers. He joins Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management at the end of the summer as a managing director.

Barclays Stockbrokers, the brokerage unit of Barclays Wealth, the UK private bank, has appointed Des Byrne as its managing director; the current office-holder, Amy Nauiokas, is leaving to relocate to New York for personal reasons. Mr Byrne was previously the head of emerging markets distribution at Barclays Capital. Ms Nauiokas has left to spend more time with her family and to focus on developing a number of charity projects and private equity ventures.

The Association of Independent Financial Advisers, the UK trade lobby group for the country’s financial advisor sector, said its deputy director general, Fay Goddard, is leaving the organisation in July

UK business law firm LG as promoted Catharine Bell (wealth planning), Nick Rucker (wealth planning), Oliver Riley (corporate), Robert Adam (real estate) and Philip Baker (construction) to be partners.

Paul White has resigned as head of Schroders' private banking operation in the UK and has been replaced by the co-head of the business Rupert Robinson. With the move, Alex Whitburn, head of banking and treasury will join the Schroders board, as will Kate Leppard, head of discretionary asset management.

Barclays Wealth has poached a senior India-based private client manager, Deepak Rattan, from ABN Amro. Mr Rattan, has been head of private clients (West), India, at ABN Amro. Mr Rattan has worked in the ABN Amro’s private client sector for six years. In his new role, Mr Rattan will be director of private clients in Barclays Wealth’s Mumbai offices.

Baring Asset Management has hired Simon Clark to join its private clients team in London as a director. He will report to John Maitland, head of private clients. This follows Barings’ recent appointment of Lynne Pellegrini as director and Graham Glass as senior investment manager to its private clients team in Guernsey. Mr Clark has spent 12 years in private wealth management, most recently at Brooks Macdonald as a director within its asset management division.

Finally, in London’s job market as a whole, latest figures from executive search firm Morgan McKinley showed that new job vacancies in London's financial services sector registered a 10 per cent increase in April 2008 compared to the previous month; despite this month-on-month increase, volumes were down 5 per cent on the same month in 2007.

Less surprisingly in the face of continued uncertainties and rumours of mass redundancies, the number of individuals looking for a new role rose 20 per cent compared with March 2008 figures and 35 per cent on April 2007 figures. On average, it took individuals 56.9 days to secure a new role during April 2008, an increase of 7.2 days on the same time the previous year.

Switzerland
Merrill Lynch (Suisse) has appointed Pascal Bachy as head of portfolio management, to be based in Geneva. He will report to Patrizio Merciai, head of discretionary portfolio management for Switzerland and will be responsible for expanding the investment capabilities of the portfolio management group. Merrill Lynch Bank (Suisse) hired Beatrix Werlen to be head of its Active Advisory Group.  Ms Werlen will report to Michelle D’Ancona, MLBS head of Europe and Swiss market leader. Before joining Merrill Lynch, Ms Werlen worked at the Royal Bank of Canada for over twenty years.

Mr Bachy joins from Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch as a team leader and private banker in the private client asset management business. He was also a member of the investment committee and head of portfolio management for the firm’s Japanese operations.

Credit Suisse appointed senior executive Bernhard Fischer as its new head of the Swiss northern region. He has worked at the bank for 20 years.

Werner Rueegg will take over as head of Bank Sarasin’s business unit Private Banking Basel from 1 January 2009, succeeding Thomas Vonaesch, who will concentrate on looking after selected clients based in Basel.

Mr Rueegg will join Bank Sarasin on 1 September 2008 from Credit Suisse where he was most recently regional manager for Northwest Switzerland and head of the Private Banking unit for that region
ING Private Banking appointed Lynn Skelly as global head of products in Geneva. He joined from American Express.

The chief executive of Deutsche Bank, Josef Ackermann, said he was not interested in a top role at a large Swiss bank, quashing speculation he may become the next chairman of Swiss bank UBS.

Credit Suisse-owned private bank Clariden Leu appointed Marco Nauli as head of the Middle East and Asia, while Markus Willi takes charge of the Latin America and Iberia division on 1 November 2008. Up to now, Mr Nauli was deputy head of the Eastern Europe, Asia and Middle East division. Until the merger, he headed the Far East unit at the former Clariden Bank.

Dexia Private Bank ( Switzerland) appointed Jean-Louis Platteau as chairman of the Swiss Bank’s management committee. Mr Platteau has held previous positions with ING and Fortis

The head of the Swiss Anti-Money Laundering Authority, Dina Beti, has been appointed to run the legal department of the Swiss Federal Finance Department.

Europe
Seven private bankers from Citi Private Bank in Europe are understood to have left the firm in the last week of May.

The seven include UK-based Luke Dugdale who had joined Citi from UBS, David Man, an ex RBC banker, Paul Pizzala who came from Heartwood and Tracy Cergnaux who was based in Geneva. One member of the credit team has also left.

Pictet Asset Management, the institutional division of the Swiss private bank Pictet & Cie, has appointed Berenika Heringa as business development manager. She will be marketing PAM's conventional equity, fixed income, SRI and alternative investment products to institutional investors in Northern Europe.
Ms Heringa will report to Gerrit Van Gorp, chief marketing officer for Benelux and Northern European business.

Before joining Pictet, Ms Heringa was at F&C Investments, where she worked in UK institutional sales, having previously worked for Dexia Asset Management in Europe. 

Bruno Lèbre has been appointed global head of the investment solutions division of SG Private Banking.

Mr Lèbre will chair an investment committee of analysts and portfolio managers which determines the main objectives of the investment policy applicable to the whole of SG Private Banking’s worldwide network.

Mr Lèbre has been at SocGen since 1988. In 1998, he became head of SG Corporate and Investment Banking’s Swiss branch and in 2004 was appointed global head of hedge fund relations at SG CIB.

International
Gary Bullock has joined Credit Suisse as a managing director and head of operations for the investment bank. He reports to David Mathers - the investment bank's head of finance - and Romeo Lacher, head of operations for the private bank.

Mr Bullock was previously at both Morgan Stanley and UBS. He will be based in London and joins the investment bank management committee.

Merrill Lynch has named Carlos Valle as the GWM group's new head at the New York International Complex. He takes over from Ricardo Morean, who, with others, left after a lawsuit against three investors caused a $78 million write-down.

The new appointee joined Merrill in 1989 and held various producer and management positions in the debts markets division from 1990 to 1998, returning to the investment banking division in November of that year as managing director in the firm's private equity group.
 
Lynn Skelly, former head of Investment and Financial Products at American Express Bank and Luis Viveros, the Geneva-based senior country executive for the private bank in Switzerland, have both left the newly-merged Standard Chartered Private Bank.

Mr Skelly has joined ING Private Bank in Geneva.

US
Wachovia Wealth Management has hired John Dowd as wealth management director for its northeast region. Mr Dowd most recently served as head of the tri-state region for Bank of New York Mellon wealth management division, responsible for the firm's portfolio management team, sales and banking.

Thomas Scaturro will become national sales director for WWM, a new position. He was managing director and head of sales for BNY Mellon Wealth Management's tri-state region.

As a result, Wachovia will split the large northeast region in two, with Mr Dowd overseeing New York, Connecticut and northern New Jersey.

Antoinette "Toni" Cooper, who had been overseeing the entire region, will lead southern New Jersey, Boston, Pennsylvania and Delaware.

Mr Dowd, Mr Scaturro and Ms Cooper will report to Stan Gregor, president of WWM’s Wealth Markets group.

US Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management has appointed Paul Weaver as private client advisor and Steve Hall as portfolio manager in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Mr Weaver will report to Craig Wall, US Trust Market Executive for the New Mexico and West Texas region and Mr Hall will report to US Trust Senior Portfolio Manager Charles Grosvenor.

Mr Weaver previously worked as a client manager for Bank of America Global Commercial Banking.

Mr Hall joins from Hall and Goldberg, a financial advisory firm, where he served as principal and co-owner. 

First Republic Bank, a San Francisco-based provider of private banking, private business banking and wealth management services, has appointed Douglas Smith as managing director in its Boston office.
 
Prior to joining First Republic, he worked for Eastern Bank as senior vice president and team leader in commercial real estate.

The Stonnington Group has hired Rod Hagenbuch as director of sales and marketing.

Prior to joining the Los Angeles-based group, Mr Hagenbuch had had a varied career as, among other roles, a senior consultant to asset management firm Affinity Investment Advisors, as a managing director of Arque Securities, an affiliate of a Japanese registered investment advisory firm and with Merrill Lynch for thirty-two years prior to his retirement in 1998.

He is also co-founder of the Quantum Leap Institute, a consulting firm, the author of two books and multiple individual training modules.

Italian-owned investment firm Pioneer Investments, which serves individuals and institutions, has appointed Anthony Koenig as its senior administrative officer in the US investment division. A senior vice president at Pioneer, Mr Koenig previously served as chief financial officer of the US investment division.

As a member of global investment staff, he will support Kenneth Taubes, head of portfolio management in the US. Mr Koenig joined Pioneer Investments in 2001 which is a wholly owned subsidiary of UniCredito Italiano.
 
Central Park Group, a US investment firm, has announced that James Hawkes, the former chairman and chief executive of US investment firm Eaton Vance, has joined its board.

Mr Hawkes joined Eaton Vance in 1970 as an equity research analyst. He was named president and chief executive in 1996 and chairman of the board in 1997.

ING has appointed Valerie Brown as the new president of its retail annuity market segment, part of the company's wealth management business group.

She will report to Kathleen Murphy, chief executive of ING US Wealth Management.

Previously, Ms Brown was the executive vice president of ING US retail annuity and wealth management while also guiding the strategy for ING's then newly organised wealth management platform.

ING has also hired Patrick Yung as the new chief marketing officer for the retail annuities business. He will have overall management and creative responsibility for all aspects of marketing and communications, supporting product development, marketing compliance activities and ING's investment platform.

Mr Yung joins ING from ConnectiCare, where he was vice president of marketing and chief of staff with full responsibilities for all aspects of marketing, product development and management.

Signature Bank, a New York-based commercial bank, has appointed Rick Stein as group director and senior vice president, working at the firm’s private client office at 261 Madison Avenue in Manhattan.

Most recently, Mr Stein was senior managing director in the private banking area at North Fork Bank, previously known as Capital One Bank, in New York, where he worked for eight years.

Previously, Mr Stein served in various roles at HSBC.

Private Bank of California said that Charles Kenny, chief executive officer, has retired. He will be succeeded by Steven Broidy, who will become interim chief executive, in addition to his role as board chairman, the bank said.

The bank said it had set up a search committee to find a new chief executive. Mr Kenny served as chief executive since it opened in October, 2005.

Allan Smith, president and chief executive officer of Canadian Investment Manager Saxon Financial, has resigned for personal reasons, effective immediately. The board of directors has issued a statement thanking him for his contributions to the organisation and wishing him well in his future endeavours.

Robert Tattersall, executive vice president, has been appointed interim president and chief executive officer. He is one of the founders of Howson Tattersall Investment Counsel, the company's investment management subsidiary and a current Saxon Financial director.

Stone & Youngberg has recruited Todd Niedermeyer to its private client group as a senior vice president.

In his new role, he will develop investment strategies for wealthy individuals and families.

Mr Niedermeyer was previously a senior vice president at Wells Fargo in the firm’s investments’ wealth management group, where he has been for the past ten years. Prior to Wells Fargo, he worked for Black & Co’s wealth management division, as a principal and member of the firm’s board of directors.
 
Focus Financial Partners, a US-based partnership of independent wealth management firms, has appointed Deborah Doyle McWhinney and William Campbell to its board of directors.

Ms McWhinney is the former president of Schwab Institutional, a custodian firm handling assets for registered investment advisors in the US. She has also worked at Visa International.

Mr Campbell is a senior advisor for JPMorgan Chase.

City National Bank is expanding its private banking and wealth management operations in Nevada with hires in Las Vegas and Reno.

Jane Standish joins as a private banking officer for its Las Vegas office and Jenna Guy as an investment trust associate for its Reno office.

Ms Standish worked for Bank of America Nevada as a market administrator in the global wealth and investment management division.

Ms Guy joins from First National Bank of Nevada, where she worked in the wealth management area for nearly three years.
 
California-based First Republic Bank has appointed Timothy Corrigan as a senior relationship manager.

Mr Corrigan will work with high net worth individuals and families, providing private banking, private business banking, investment management and trust services, and real estate lending at the bank's Rockefeller Center office in New York.

Prior to joining First Republic, Mr Corrigan worked for Wachovia Bank for six years in a variety of positions.

Thomas Weisel Partners, a US investment firm based in San Francisco, has appointed Paul Slivon, former head of Institutional Sales, as head of its private client department.

Mr Slivon will work on expanding asset management business and will remain a member of the company’s executive committee.

Palm Beach-based GenSpring Family Offices has named SunTrust veteran Michael Woocher as president of its office in the Buckhead district of Atlanta, Georgia, and Garrett Alton as senior vice president and wealth management strategist in Atlanta overall.

Mr Woocher has held various senior leadership and client management roles within the Private Wealth Management unit of SunTrust, which has a majority holding in GenSpring. Most recently, he was a senior vice president and group team leader within SunTrust Private Wealth Management, where he had responsibility for the sales and service efforts of four teams with client investment assets in excess of $7 billion.

Mr Alton comes to GenSpring from Neuberger Berman/Lehman Brothers, where he was regional director of wealth management leading the Atlanta, Washington DC and Philadelphia offices.

Asia Pacific
Barclays Wealth has hired Deepak Rattan as a director with responsibility for private clients in India. He joins from ABN Amro where he had been since the inception of its private banking business in July 2002.

Mr Rattan will be based in Mumbai and will report to Satya Bansal, chief executive of Barclays Wealth, India.

Private banker Tom O’Donnell has joined Macquarie Private Bank’s Sydney-based client advisory team. Mr O’Donnell joins Macquarie from Rothschild, where he was based in Guernsey. 

ANZ Private Bank has appointed Justin Greiner, the former chief operating officer of Australian real estate finance company Greenway Capital. The appointment follows the recently reported appointment by ANZ Private Bank of George Haramis as head of advisory and risk.

Also a former head of financial planning at Westpac, Mr Greiner will be responsible for the Private Bank businesses in New South Wales and ACT, representing approximately 40 per cent of the bank’s national business.

Mr Haramis will lead a national team of 50 advisors and risk professionals specialising in “tailoring financial solutions to the needs of high-net-worth individuals”.

He resigned for “family reasons” from ING-owned dealer group RetireInvest in February 2006 and subsequently took on a position as sales and marketing head for listed salary packaging company McMillan Shakespeare.

Denis Lefranc has been named Asia-Pacific chief executive at Societe Generale Asset Management.

Mr Lefranc, was appointed from his post as deputy chief executive of Fortune SGAM Fund Management in Shanghai, replacing Laurent Bertiau, who has moved on to become SGAM’s global head of sales and marketing in Paris.

Fortune SGAM Fund Management is a joint venture between Baosteel Group and SGAM.
 
Germany’s Deutsche Bank has appointed Anurag Mahesh as head of global investments and sales in Asia Pacific to boost its private banking business in the region.

Mr Mahesh, based in Singapore, reports to Ravi Raju, head of private wealth management in Asia Pacific. Mr Mahesh joined the bank in 2007 and was previously head of structured products at the private wealth management department.

Before Deutsche Bank, Mr Mahesh worked at Citigroup for 14 years where he held senior roles in securitisation, foreign exchange and structured products development in Singapore and Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong office of Julius Baer has appointed Pauline Chung as managing director and market head for China.

Ms Chung will focus on developing the wealth management business relationship with China, one of the region’s key markets. She reports directly to Andrea Benenati, chief executive of North Asia.

Most recently she was the head of China for HSBC Private Bank. Prior to this she worked as country team head of China for UBS for over seven years. She has also been a team head for the Hong Kong Market at various wealth managers including Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of America and Citi Private Bank.

The long-serving head of Australia’s Suncorp Wealth Management, Dennis Fox, will retire at the end of July.

Suncorp said Mr Fox, whose career has spanned more than 35 years in financial services, will be succeeded by Geoffrey Summerhayes, who was most recently Australian general manager, specialised businesses, for National Australia Bank.
 
Prudential Corporation Asia has appointed Arne Lindman as chief executive of its fund management business, hiring him from ABN Amro Asset Management, where he was chief executive for the firm’s Asia Pacific arm.

Based in Prudential’s regional Asian headquarters in Hong Kong, Mr Lindman will take up his post on 4 August. He began his career with Svenska Handelsbanken in Sweden in 1987.

Reto Marx is to replace Kenneth Sit, who left his position as chief executive officer of Bank Sarasin-Rabo (Asia) last month.

Mr Marx is currently at Credit Suisse, where he reports to Francois Monnait.

At Credit Suisse, Mr Marx is market leader for Australasia and head of International Wealth Management in Asia.

He has been at Credit Suisse in Asia for eight years and was previously at UBP in Zurich.

At Sarasin, Mr Marx will be head of South East Asia and Singapore branch head.

Citi Private Bank has appointed a new head of its Taipei office in Taiwan.

Jennifer Chou is the acting chief officer for the private bank's Taipei office, taking over from Victor Chao, who has left the company to pursue other opportunities.

Ms Chou will report to Richard Straus, global market manager for Taiwan. She will oversee a team of a dozen bankers, product specialists and support and operational staff, leading Citi Private Bank's efforts to expand its business in Taiwan.

Mr Chao is believed to have left to join Deutsche Bank as head of its private wealth management arm in Taiwan.