The High Court awarded well-known Taiwanese scientist Dr Chang Tse Wen US$49m in damages plus interest and legal costs for his losses suffered through financial products known as Accumulators bought from Deutsche Bank as a result of negligent advice.
Dr Chang made $118m from his work on the asthma drug Xolair after [...]
Yes, you read that right. 75% of investors lost money. That’s the statistic given by a trainer who used to work for a well-known international bank.
To be specific, he said 75% of the bank’s clients who bought unit trust lost money. Ah, the big bad unit trust…
Before you start [...]
The quote “Bearish brokers have skinny children” stuck after attending a wealth management forum. This simple phase speak volumes about the issues facing not just the wealth management industry, but the whole investment community. The issues discussed at the forum were starting to sound like a broken record. No clear solutions was offered.
A businessman deposits $1m into a bank. Down comes the relationship manager with 2 proposals that total, you guessed it, $1m.
2 hot funds plus a universal life plan were proposed. A whopping 5% sales charge was imposed but there was no attempt to asset allocate at all. The investment was split [...]
As F1 roars into town and private banks get to wine and dine their clients, a growing number of millionaires are realizing who actually is footing the bill.
According to the 22nd September 2011 report on Bloomberg (Millionaires Form Family Offices to Avoid Private Banks), successful Asian families are setting [...]
The main reason for relationship managers (RMs) leaving is that they have been ‘encouraged to do so‘ by the banks! Not very encouraging… And by the way, what do you mean by ‘underperformance‘?
The latest Global Private Banking and Wealth Management Survey has yielded some interesting (but long known?) results. Snippets of [...]
The notorious Accumulators, also known “I Kill You Later”, are in the news again. An 88 year old Indonesian businessmen has sued a bank for US$17m for losses in Accumulators linked to currencies.
As usual, the bank has claimed that the plaintiff has “extensive experience in a wide range of investment products, [...]
The High Court has ordered a Swiss private bank to return US$2.34m lost through unauthorized forex transactions, reports the 11th June 2011 edition of The Straits Times (Give back customer’s US$2.34m, bank told). The customer’s client relationship officer made more than 160 unauthorized forex transactions, making losses of US$2.34m for the [...]
An investor, who has been sued by a French bank for $6.4m for losses from Accumulators, will get a new hearing after he appealed against a High Court decision in favor of the bank, reports the 20th April issue of The Straits Times (Investor sued for $6.4m gets new hearing).
Private banks seems to be busy these days. Yet another lawsuit has surfaced. This time, UBS has taken a couple to court on the grounds that they owe the bank $9m from losses from foreign exchange transactions. The couple has counter-sued claiming that they are relatively inexperienced in financial markets and had relied [...]