Merrill hires Citi bankers to target rich Indonesians

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Merrill Lynch MER.N said on Thursday it had hired a team of four private bankers from Citigroup (C.N), who will be based in Singapore and look for business from Indonesian billionaires.

The move shows global banks are still targeting expansion of their private banking business in Asia despite analysts' fears that global credit turmoil will crimp growth.

"Our aim is to target billionaires in the region," Rahul Malhotra, regional head of Merrill's Global Private Client unit told Reuters, adding that the unit expected to see its business continue to grow by 15-20 percent a year in Asia.

Merrill on Thursday reported a nearly $2 billion first-quarter loss and said it planned to cut 4,000 jobs after making billions of dollars of writedowns for subprime mortgages and other risky assets.

Rob Stewart, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for the U.S. bank, said the team would be headed by Chan Kwee-him and would report to Wayne Yang, who heads its private investment banking group -- a specialized unit that targets ultra-high net worth individuals.

Jack Sung, a spokesman for Citigroup, confirmed the departures and said Chan, who was part of the bank's large team of private bankers targeting Indonesia, would leave next week.

Indonesia's economy expanded 6.3 percent last year, its fastest in 11 years.

A report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini said that Indonesia had 66,000 millionaires who held $70 billion of investable assets at the end of 2006.

Singapore has emerged as an important centre for private banks to target Indonesian clients because many of them have homes in the city-state and list their companies there.

The report said 19,000 individuals of Indonesian origin resided in Singapore and held around $93 billion in financial wealth.

Indonesian-owned firms that are listed in Singapore include plantation companies Golden Agri-Resources (GAGR.SI) and Indofood Agri Resources AFAR.SI.

Citi, a major player in Asia's private banking business alongside UBS (UBSN.VX) and HSBC (HSBA.L), has lost several bankers to rivals such as Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) in the past few years.

Earlier this month Morgan Stanley hired Tan Su Shan from Citigroup. Tan had left Morgan Stanley in 2005 to join Citi and returned this month to become Morgan's head of Southeast Asia and Australia.

(Editing by Neil Chatterjee/Andrew Hurst)