Staff Reporter

Towers Watson has appointed two investment consultants and one investment analyst as part of its Australian investment team.

Felicity Walsh joins the Sydney office as an investment consultant after working as a senior actuarial consultant with Towers Watson in the UK. Alex Misev has re-joined Towers Watson following a year at Aberdeen Asset Management as a portfolio manager in the Netherlands.

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The Asset

Barclays has named Sudeep Sarma as head of research, Asia-Pacific and Bhavtosh Vajpayee as head of equity research, Asia ex-Japan, following the appointment of Jon Scoffin, who will be moving to New York as head of equity research.

Sarma will retain his role as global chief operating officer (COO) for research alongside his new responsibilities leading and managing Barclays’ economic and equity research teams in Asia-Pacific. He will continue to report to Larry Kantor, head of research. Sarma will move to Singapore from London.

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Staff Reporter

Treasury Group has reported a half-yearly net profit of $6.76 million following improved market conditions and strong performance from a number of its boutique funds management companies.

This represents an increase of 12 per cent in net profit from the 2013 corresponding period.

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Dominic Rushe

Credit Suisse used “cloak-and-dagger schemes that belong in a spy novel” to help 22,000 US customers hide billions of dollars from US tax inspectors, top senators said Tuesday as they released their latest report into offshore tax schemes.

Senators Carl Levin and John McCain had harsh words for the Justice Department and the Swiss government, too, as they released a 178-page permanent subcommittee on investigation (PSI) report into offshore tax avoidance. McCain said US authorities had done too little to prosecute bankers, and accused the Swiss government of trying to “close the door” on misconduct.

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Jeanine Prezioso

Britain’s Barclays Plc said on Tuesday it has closed its power trading desks in London and New York, joining a string of global investment banks that are paring down their commodity market activities as increased regulations bite.

Barclays, a top-five banking player in commodities trading which is in the process of shrinking its investment banking activities, said its “core commodities franchise continues to operate business as usual”.

“We will continue to actively manage our existing books to minimize any impact on our clients’ business,” the bank said in a statement.

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The Asset

AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) has appointed Jim Veneau as head of credit Asia and Christy Lee as a portfolio manager within its Asian fixed income team. Both are based in Hong Kong and report to Rob Andrew, head of fixed income Asia.

Veneau joins AXA IM from HSBC GAM where he was most recently an Investment director in their Asian fixed income team responsible for managing both high yield and investment grade credit mandates as well as the team’s risk budgeting and analytics. Jim’s focus will be managing Asian fixed income credit portfolios and developing AXA IM’s Asian Fixed Income credit strategy.

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