UBS taps growing market of wealthy Asian women
UBS, the world’s largest private banking provider, keeps getting bigger, with more of its growth coming from Asia, and from its women in particular.
So what else is new? After all, as the rich get richer, and with a turbocharged China, the fact that more of the region’s wealthy people are women is to be expected.
The invested assets of UBS Wealth Management Asia Pacific grew by a record US$95 billion to $382.8 billion in 2017, and made a strong profit contribution of 21% to the Swiss bank’s global wealth management division.
But while more are making it into the big time, either as salaried workers or entrepreneurs, they remain a minority in the overall scheme of things, even if as Mao Zedong famously said, “they hold up half the sky”. Whatever male comrades can accomplish, female comrades can too, he added.
Tracey Woon, vice-chair for wealth management with UBS Asia Pacific, is certainly very accomplished. An investment banker for 35 years, she is at the top of her game, and surprised some when she joined UBS in July 2016, leaving her position as vice-chair of corporate and investment banking at Citibank Asean.
“When I made my move, a lot of people thought I was going to retire — not have another career,” said Ms Woon. “Going from a US bank to a European wealth manager really excited me.”
She likes the new challenge, as well as the fact that UBS is big on philanthropy and that she will be talking to some of the wealthiest people in the world. To be clear, she will “cover all clients, though the bulk of them are billionaires”.
“My remit is providing strategic advice and dialogue to some of the wealthiest people in the world,” she said.
According to the 2017 UBS/PwC billionaire study, the number of Asian billionaires stood at 637, of whom 6% or 39 are women.
For the first time, Asian billionaires outnumbered their 563 counterparts in the United States, but the US still retains the greatest concentration of wealth, the study said. If the current trend continues, the total wealth of Asian billionaires will overtake that of their US peers in four years.
The study showed that around 70% of Asia’s female billionaires are selfmade, compared with a global average of 26%. The figure was 17% in US and 7% in Europe. Some of Asia’s wealthiest females are business owners who might be interested in corporate activities such as large asset sales, mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings and other capital-raising activities and are looking for banks with the capability to execute.
Helping business owners with their corporate activities would be easy for Ms Woon, who during her time at Merrill Lynch was involved in Singapore’s largest takeover: the S$10-billion acquisition of Overseas Union Bank by United Overseas Bank in 2001.
All investors generally look for the best returns, but research has shown that in stark contrast to men, women are more focused on investing to achieve positive social change, she said.
One study by the US-based Center for Talent Innovation found that 88% of women want to invest in organisations that promote social wellbeing. Female investors could be set to invest $2.3 trillion in improving social good by 2021, according to a UBS calculation based on a Cap Gemini World Wealth Report.
The bank last year announced a fiveyear plan to significantly scale up its expertise to better serve female clients. “Women do invest very differently from men — they think not just about generating a financial return,” said Ms Woon.
They don’t think only about US Treasuries, they are also interested in World Bank bonds and green bonds, she said.
Asked about her own career, in which she has not only thrived but also risen to the top in the very tough investment banking world, Ms Woon said women have differences that they can capitalise on. “Men find it harder to fight with women,” she said.
On getting things done, “when it comes to the actual financial outcome, the givens are how smart you are, how you run the numbers. The difference is how you deal with the situation, how you put things across. ... Women have more options than men.”
There are also no short-cuts to being disciplined and focused on the end game, in her view.
“I’ve always thought it’s possible to have a work-life balance,” said Ms Woon, whose spouse is a house husband. Even so, she has had to make sacrifices when her three children were young. She gave up golf, which offers great networking opportunities but is very time-consuming.
Her competitive nature also made her give up another sport. A five-time Singapore National Squash champion, Ms Woon stopped playing squash because she “hates losing”. She didn’t have much of a social life either, she said.
Has she faced sexual harassment at work or hurdles that a male colleague might not encounter?
Women are “intuitive” and “anticipatory”, and “you can see it coming and don’t let yourself get into that situation”, she said. Her advice: You have to figure out the situation before it blows up.
“Women do invest very differently from men — they think not just about generating a financial return”
TRACEY WOON Vice-chair for wealth management, UBS Asia Pacific