HOT – Asian Tycoons

The opinion may label them «Crazy, Rich Asians» but the region’s 20 richest families together control over $450 billion. Six Hong Kong clans featured on the list, compiled by «Bloomberg». The feuding Kwok brothers, whose Sun Hung Kai Properties dominates Hong Kong’s skyline with buildings such as the ICC in Kowloon and say they have lost $2 billion since the start of the Hong Kong protests, are still the richest family in Hong Kong. 

Michael Kadoorie, whose father Elly Kadoorie came to Hong Kong in 1880, made the cut thanks to The Peninsula Hotel Group as well as CLP Holdings, electricity supplier to Kowloon as did Singapore’s Kwek family, owners of the Hong Leong Group.

HOT – The Pied Piper of Private Banking

Hamstrung by a partnership structure that is far less tolerant than fawning shareholders, Boris Collardi (pictured below) in 2019 decided, perhaps for the first time in his career, to stay away from the limelight.

(Image: Keystone)

However, the charismatic private banker still managed to lure away dozens of former colleagues from Julius Baer. When work on a mammoth new Pictet office in Zurich, away from its Genevan headquarters – and the daily oversight of partners – is complete, that number could well double. 

NOT – Diversity

2019 was not a great year to be a woman in financial services. A female graduate trainee at UBS alleged she was raped by a colleague 20 years her senior. Despite leveling charges of sexual harassment, sexual discrimination, and victimization as a result of whistleblowing, she was made to sit near her alleged rapist for three weeks before the story leaked to the press.