Barclays’s Koon Chow Leaves to Join Swiss Asset Management Firm
(Bloomberg) — Koon Chow, former head of emerging markets foreign exchange and local markets strategy at Barclays Plc, left after eight years to join Union Bancaire Privee.
Chow, 42, starts this month as a senior macro and foreign exchange strategist at the Swiss asset manager, based in London, the company said in a statement. His responsibilities include providing trade ideas and running sovereign and currency research. He’ll report to Denis Girault, head of the emerging markets fixed income team. Chow quit Barclays in December after his promotion to managing director last year.
His departure comes as the British bank shrinks its emerging markets business, following new regulation that requires lenders to hold more capital and liquid assets. Barclays Chief Executive Officer Antony Jenkins is reducing the investment banking arm and focusing on the U.K. and U.S.
Chow isn’t the only Barclays employee to join an asset manager. Nick Howard, former head of sales for Europe, left last year and started at Rokos Family Office in July, according to his LinkedIn profile. Andrea Iannelli, a foreign-exchange salesman, started at Fidelity Worldwide Investment last week, the company said.
UBP, based in Geneva, had 95 billion Swiss francs ($108 billion) of assets under management as of June 30, according to company filings. An official at Barclays declined to comment.
To contact the reporter on this story: Julia Verlaine in London at jverlaine2@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Simone Meier at smeier@bloomberg.net Jon Menon, Steve Bailey
