StanChart hires HSBC's Cooper to run investment bank

[LONDON] Standard Chartered Plc hired HSBC Holdings Plc's Simon Cooper to run its investment bank, filling another position in Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters's management overhaul.

Cooper, 48, starts in April and replaces the corporate and institutional division's interim head Mark Dowie, the London-based lender said in a statement Thursday. Cooper was formerly head of global commercial banking at HSBC.

Winters, 54, unveiled a new strategy last month to turn around the Asia-focused lender after its shares slumped amid a slowdown in emerging-market economies and a drop in commodity prices. The bank raised US$5.1 billion of extra capital from investors in a rights offering this month and has begun cutting 15,000 jobs and restructuring US$100 billion of assets after bad loans surged.

"Simon will be responsible for executing the new strategy announced on November 3, across the group's largest business," the bank said in the statement. "This includes improving returns on US$40 billion of assets, investing in products and services where the group has an advantage" and "adding new clients where we can make returns safely."

The shares rose 7.6 per cent to 551.6 pence at 11:34 a.m. in London, paring the loss this year to 40 per cent.

Standard Chartered this week hired Didier Von Daeniken from Barclays Plc to run its global private banking and wealth management business, and named another former HSBC employee, Mark Smith, chief risk officer in August.

Since taking over from Peter Sands in June, Winters has increased his oversight by appointing a new 13-member management team reporting directly to him. He also assumed responsibility for all three of the firm's main divisions from deputy-CEO Mike Rees, who used to run the investment bank.

Rees helped build Standard Chartered's investment bank and trade finance operations after becoming CEO of wholesale banking in 2002, expanding the unit to account for more than 70 per cent of the lender's assets and profit by 2013.

Dowie, who is vice-chairman of clients and products and a member of the bank's management team, was made temporary CEO of corporate and institutional banking on July 19, one of three "client businesses" created since Winters took over. The other two client businesses are run by Karen Fawcett, head of retail, and Anna Marrs, in charge of commercial banking and private banking.

BLOOMBERG