Wealthy people in Asia are readying cash to take advantage of opportunities in financial markets and private equity once the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, the head of private banking at Southeast Asia’s largest lender said in an interview this week.
Clients have increased cash holdings to about 40 percent of their portfolios in recent months, up from about 30 percent before the pandemic, said Joseph Poon, who leads DBS Group Holdings Ltd’s Private Bank unit.
While the unit does not disclose assets under management, it is part of DBS Group’s S$251 billion (US$184 billion) wider wealth platform, which is among the largest in Asia.
Photo: Reuters
“Clients are holding a lot more cash than usual. It’s a very interesting phenomenon,” Poon said.
“Ultra-high-net-worth clients believe there will be a good opportunity in the marketplace once the pandemic impacts have flown through the economy,” he said, referring to those with at least S$30 million in investable assets.
Clients are considering financial assets, e-commerce and logistics businesses with funding gaps, he said. Some plan to use the cash for their own business needs and might use it to expand companies through partners.
Poon’s insights mirror a wider trend.
Data compiled by Bloomberg showed that leading private equity firms are sitting on about US$1.6 trillion of dry powder after the pandemic halted private equity deals and roiled global markets.
Still, holding on to cash might mean that some investors have already missed a massive market rally, with the MSCI AC Asia Pacific Index surging about 43 percent since its March low.
New assets inflows — or net new money — at DBS Private Bank and another one of its wealth businesses more than doubled to S$5 billion in the first half, Poon said.
The funds came from a range of destinations, including family offices in the US, Europe and elsewhere that see Singapore as “a strong jurisdiction,” he said.
DBS Private Bank, which accepts clients with at least S$5 million in investable assets, is part of DBS Group’s wider wealth platform, which reported that assets grew 7 percent at the end of June from a year earlier.
DBS Group expects assets under management to grow at a similar rate this year, Poon said.
Elsewhere in the region, DBS Group is on track to double the wealth assets at its Thai brokerage unit to S$8 billion by 2023.
The bank has seen rich Thais looking at private banking products in Singapore as they hunt for global investments, Poon said.
It is also looking to expand in the Philippines, where it only has a representative office, Poon said, without giving more details.
“We kicked off some discussions last year and are still in the midst of structuring the best way to tap on the growing onshore high-net-worth individuals’ increasing investment appetite,” Poon said. “Still, it’s early days.”
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary