Rockefeller’s Fleming sees banks’ caution growing over China

GREG Fleming, head of wealth adviser Rockefeller Capital Management, said he sees financial institutions becoming increasingly wary of expanding in China due to mounting geopolitical tensions and pandemic restrictions.

“There will be much more caution in terms of the level of capital investment and aggressiveness of the growth strategy,” Fleming said Friday (Jul 15) in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

He said he anticipates the pullback will boost US manufacturing of precision products like semiconductors, a move that will strengthen the American economy while also stoking an already scorching rate of inflation. 

Fleming, a former president of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, said the retreat from Asia is an abrupt departure from the trend he’s witnessed for much of his career.

“All the major financial firms in the US were trying to build a presence in those markets and now you have a retrenchment back to home markets, on both a financial basis as well as on trade,” he said.

Fleming, 59, helped create Rockefeller in 2018 as an outgrowth of the family office of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller. The New York-based company oversaw US$95 billion of client assets as of Mar 31 across its three business segments.

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Rockefeller has continued an aggressive acquisition strategy even with the recent downturn in equity markets, adding at least a dozen teams this year in cities including Atlanta, Denver, West Palm Beach and San Jose, California. The firm has offices in 38 locations across the US and opened a London office in early 2022. 

Rockefeller’s push to bulk up on wealth advice comes as the ranks of high-net-worth individuals swelled following a decade-long bull market, capped by a surge in asset values in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. While that run-up has reversed recently as stocks turned volatile, some firms are taking advantage of the lull to expand their offerings. BLOOMBERG