Exclusive: Asia multi-issuer platform appoints new CEO

SW

Apr 08, 2024By Summer Wang (SRP)

Hong Kong-based multi-issuer platform Goldhorse has named a former EFG Bank executive as new CEO.

Edward (Chengen) Liu (pictured) has been appointed as deputy chief executive officer (CEO) of Goldhorse Capital Management (HK) with responsibility for the entire business operation. according to a spokesperson at the company.

He replaces Long (Kalong) Lee, former CEO of Vontobel Limited, the financial products arm of Vontobel Holdings based in Hong Kong SAR.

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Lee stepped down at the end of February, but remains as a director of the board and an advisor at Goldhorse. Apart from that, he will retire from the finance industry and focus on serving a non-profit organisation (NGO).

Besides Liu and Lee, Wenwei Huang, director of business development, acts as another director on the board at Goldhorse, according to the Hong Kong government-run companies registry.

The ten-year old private company, which is fully owned by Goldhorse Capital (BVI), launched Extramile at the end of 2020. The cloud-based platform is designed to act as an independent intermediary connecting structured note issuers with external asset managers (EAMs), private banks and brokerage firms.

In 2023, approximately US$2 billion structured note notional was traded on Extramile where over 100 contracted EAMs and 15 issuers were present. "Extramile continues to evolve with new functionalities being introduced, such as marketplace and community forum," said the spokesperson, adding that "a few more issuers" are expected to onboard this year.

SRP learnt that the company is also developing Extramile Pro, a dedicated version for clients that have distribution agreements with issuers. The spokesperson declined to provide details on Extramile Pro as "the roadmap and timing of roll-out have not been finalised".

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Extramile adds to the existing multi-issuer platforms Contineo and FinIQ which have a strong presence in Hong Kong SAR and Singapore, but is licensed by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong to carry out Type 1 (dealing in securities) and Type 4 (advising on securities) regulated activities with a main client target of EAMs.

Lee joined Goldhorse as CEO from Vontobel in October 2020 with key responsibility to spearhead the Extramile, which supports lifecycle and sales management, record keeping, research reports as well as product advisory.
His role at Vontobel has filled by Urs Pfister who was previously head of trading and public distribution, Asia.

Lee joined Vontobel in early 2018 in charge of the structured products business in Asia Pacific (Apac) before taking up the CEO role in January 2020. Previously, he spent more than seven years at Leonteq following a stint at BBVA and BOC International, based in Hong Kong SAR.

Liu, the new CEO of Goldhorse, joined the platform as head of investment services in November 2020. Prior to that, he was managing director, head of investment counselling, North Asia at EFG Bank where he led initiatives to build out the investment advisory franchise at the Hong Kong branch since August 2017.

Liu also specialises in structured products, particularly across equity and fund, with over-a-decade service across CICC (Hong Kong), Noah Holdings (Hong Kong), Credit Suisse (Hong Kong) and Barclays Capital (Asia).

Sitting in the wealth management unit, he constructed product advice to investment consultants across bonds, structured products, over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, traditional funds, alternative investment and China cross-border products at CICC (Hong Kong), the offshore arm of Chinese investment bank CICC.

Additionally, he was tasked to execute structured products and OTC derivatives trades while maximising transactional revenue.

At Credit Suisse, Liu structured and marketed fund-linked and cross-asset algorithmic index-linked derivatives to financial institutions as well as fund-related financing solutions in Asia Pacific ex-Japan from May 2007 to December 2012.

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