Joanna Munro was appointed CEO of HSBC Asset Management's new alternatives unit, overseeing $53 billion in assets under management and advisement.
The money manager created its HSBC alternatives division, effective immediately, by bringing together its HSBC Alternatives Investments business — which covers multimanager hedge fund and private markets teams — with private debt, venture capital and direct real estate teams. The 150-strong team covers the U.K., France, Germany, Switzerland, Hong Kong and the U.S.
The creation of the single unit "reflects the success and rapid growth of our alternatives business and will enable us to be more efficient in delivering innovative solutions to our clients and meeting their investment needs," a spokesman said. There will be no changes to the existing teams, he added.
The move is also part of HSBC AM's strategy to reposition as a core solutions provider and specialist in Asia, emerging markets and alternatives.
London-based Ms. Munro reports to Nicolas Moreau, CEO. Her strong track record of building and transforming businesses made her the "natural choice" for the role, the spokesman said.
Ms. Munro was global CIO. She was replaced, effective immediately, by Xavier Baraton. Paris-based Mr. Baraton was global CIO for fixed income, private debt and alternatives. His replacement is to be announced "in due course," a news release said.
"We have been very successful in delivering innovative capabilities to our institutional and wealth clients, with the recent success of our infrastructure debt teams, the rapid growth of our indirect private equity business, the launch of a direct lending investment capability with HSBC U.K. and the establishment of our Climatech venture capital team," Mr. Moreau said in the release. "With Joanna's strong track record of building and transforming businesses, I am confident that we will take our alternatives business to the next level and accelerate this important growth opportunity."
Regarding Mr. Baraton's appointment, Mr. Moreau said he has an "outstanding investment track record, commitment to embedding sustainability across our fixed income asset class with innovations such as our real economy EM green bond strategy, REGIO, and more recently his leadership on diversity and inclusion across our investment platform make him ideally placed to lead our investment teams globally."
HSBC AM has a total $621 billion in AUM.
