Coutts focuses senior hiring on Middle East and Asian business
COUTTS has hired a troupe of senior executives in the Middle East in Asia, but is less keen on boosting its UK hiring after what it sees as enough growth in London over the last decade.
The private bank, which is owned by RBS, has brought on board around 20 top managers to boost its presence in high-growth markets, where it is targeting high net worth clients.
By contrast, it sees its British operation as being about the right size for now.
The bank is restructuring itself in part as a response to the retail distribution review (RDR), a major overhaul of investment management regulation.
But it is also trying to expand its investment management division so that more of its rich day-to-day banking clients also use the company to steward their wealth.
Coutts was hit by two fines by the FSA recently, one of which has forced the bank to review its controls to stop money laundering. It recently made a senior addition to its UK treasury team by hiring Michael Renner from Fidessa Asset Management.
But many of the bank’s other prominent appointments have been outside Britain. Most notably, the bank poached Gary Dugan from his job as chief investment officer of Emirates NBD and lured Kenneth Sue from HSBC to be its head of products and services in Hong Kong.