Six private bankers leave UBS for Goldman-sources

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By Saeed Azhar

SINGAPORE, April 10 (Reuters) - Six private bankers have quit UBS AG (UBSN.VX) in Singapore to join rival Goldman Sachs (GS.N), banking sources said on Tuesday.

The six include senior private banker Shern Liang Tan, who spent several years at UBS and who was previously with Citigroup. Three of the bankers have clients with assets of at least $50 million, banking sources told Reuters.

UBS declined to comment, while Goldman Sachs was not available for comment.

UBS is the world's biggest wealth manager. In Asia, it has $100 billion in assets, equivalent to almost 10 percent of its global assets.

UBS currently has more than 20 bankers in Singapore in its key client team, which handles wealthy individuals with assets of more than $50 million. Across the whole of Asia, UBS has a key client team of 60 bankers in total, a source said.

The moves are another sign of fierce competition among private banks to poach talent in Singapore.

Last year a quarter of the private banking team of Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. (OCBC.SI) left the Singapore bank to join rival foreign banks, banking sources said.

Tan Su Shan, managing director Citigroup Private Bank Singapore, told Reuters in January that the last two years had been particularly bad for private banks as rivals tried to lure teams of experienced bankers with extensive contacts books.

"I think too many private banks were trying to steal other bankers with books. That in 2005 and part of 2006 led to high turnover in the industry which I have said over and over again is not healthy for banks or the clients," she said.

Bankers say the situation has improved in 2007 because more graduates are coming out of universities and training institutes while private banks are also training bankers in-house.

This week, UBS will open a wealth management campus in Singapore that has the capacity to train a total of 5,000 UBS wealth management staff in the next four years.

Last year Citigroup started legal proceedings against six bankers who were poached by UBS in Singapore.

In recent years, Singapore has emerged as a key centre for wealth management in Asia, and a string of international banks have moved their regional chiefs for private banking to Singapore.

Citigroup this month appointed Deepak Sharma to run its global wealth management business outside the United States from Singapore, making him the bank's only international business head not to be based in New York.

Merrill Lynch/Capgemini expects the wealth of millionaires in Asia to grow by 6.7 percent a year through 2010 to $10.6 trillion, ahead of the global average of 6 percent.

((Reporting by Saeed Azhar, editing by Geert De Clercq; saeed.azhar@reuters.com; Reuters Messaging: saeed.azhar.reuters.com@reuters.net; +65 64035664))

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