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.”
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) shares yesterday notched their best two-day rally on record, as investors flock to the Taiwanese chip designer on excitement over its tie-up with Google. The Taipei-listed stock jumped 8.59 percent, capping a two-session surge of 19 percent and closing at a fresh all-time high of NT$1,770. That extended a two-month rally on growing awareness of MediaTek’s work on Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs), which are chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. It also highlights how fund managers faced with single-stock limits on their holding of market titan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are diversifying into other AI-related firms.
RSS