(Z) Credit Suisse to Add 900 in Singapore Support Center

Credit Suisse Group, the world's third-biggest money manager for the rich, said it's adding more than 900 people in Singapore to support its asset management, private and investment banking businesses.

The new positions in the city will be filled by 2007, Paul Calello, Asia chief executive officer at Credit Suisse, said at a press conference in the city today. It follows a similar decision last month by New York-based Merrill Lynch & Co.

Banks are shifting back-office operations to Singapore to escape the higher costs of Asian financial centers such as Hong Kong and Tokyo. Singapore's financial industry, which makes up 12 percent of the city's $122 billion economy, stands to benefit from rising demand for money management globally and in Asia, which had 2.2 million U.S. dollar millionaires in 2004.

``Singapore is cost effective because its population is well-educated and speaks English and infrastructure is very good and yet office rents remain incredibly cheap,'' said Emil Wolter, who manages $140 million of assets at London-based Polar Capital and owns shares of Asian companies.

The new positions will be filled mostly by new hires, said Calello. Credit Suisse already employs 2,200 people in Singapore.

Singapore's annual prime office rents average about $380 per square meter, lower than Sydney's $398, Tokyo's $597 or Hong Kong's $970 average rents, according to data from Jones Lang LaSalle, a property consulting company. Rents have risen 20 percent in Singapore in the past year for prime office spaces.

Accommodates 1,400

A new facility being opened by Credit Suisse in Singapore has the capacity to accommodate 1,400 people, said Calello. The initial 900 workers will be new hires and employees transferred from other offices, mainly from the U.S. and Europe.

``Singapore is a vital center for the entire region both in terms of our regional business strategy and our regional support operation,'' he said, adding he expects another record year for debt and equity sales in the region.

Credit Suisse is leasing 110,000 square feet of space in ``One Raffles Quay'' in the marina area next to the city's financial district. The Swiss bank first set up a global support center in Singapore in 2004, taking 30,700 square feet of space on the island's eastern end.

Merrill Lynch, the biggest U.S. securities firm by market value, said in April it's setting up a global support center in Singapore for its private banking and global markets business that will employ 900 people by 2008.

Barclays, Citigroup

Barclays Plc set up an International Business Center that provides support for the bank's global operations in a 75,000- square-foot area in November 2004. It employs more than 1,000 people in Singapore.

Citigroup Inc., the largest U.S. lender, has 7,500 people in Singapore and the city is the center for its operations and technology group and private banking for Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

Investment banks like Credit Suisse ``are looking toward a greater level of efficiency to deliver more value to our shareholders,'' Calello said.

Under Group CEO Oswald Gruebel, Credit Suisse has pledged to raise profit to 8.2 billion Swiss francs ($6.7 billion) by the end of 2007, a 40 percent increase from 5.85 billion francs in 2005. Credit Suisse aims to add a further 1 billion francs to earnings through cost savings starting in 2008.

Adding global support centers in Singapore makes sense not just because the island straddles the time zones between Europe and the U.S. The nation also is at the center of a region with the world's fastest-growing economies, China and India.

Still, some banks prefer Hong Kong. Rabobank Groep, the world's largest agricultural lender, is relocating its structured-products development group to Hong Kong by the end of the second quarter. Rabobank International Asia will move as many as 18 people to Hong Kong, maintaining a sales team in Singapore.

Asian Growth

Asia's economy will grow 6.9 percent this year, outpacing an estimated 2 percent expansion in Europe and 3.4 percent in the U.S., the International Monetary Fund forecast in April.

The growth is generating more millionaires and more business for private banks. Asia's 2.2 million millionaires in 2004 was an 8.2 percent increase from the previous year, according to the World Wealth Report by Cap Gemini SA and Merrill Lynch.

Singapore is the world's fastest-growing market for millionaires. The city-state of 4.35 million had 48,500 people with assets of more than $1 million at the end of 2004, up 22 percent from a year earlier, according to the 2005 World Wealth Report.

Credit Suisse is also considering adding ``a handful more'' of back-office operations in Asia, Eastern Europe and in the Americas, Thomas Sanzone, chief information officer, said.

Private Banking

Singapore is Credit Suisse's biggest private-banking hub outside its Zurich headquarters. Credit Suisse ranks fourth among private banks in Singapore, behind UBS AG, Citigroup Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc, measured by assets under management.

Banks helped companies raise $2.52 trillion selling bonds in 2005, an increase from $2.35 trillion in 2004, and $453 billion in share offerings, up 12 percent, according to Bloomberg data. Governments and companies in Asia outside Japan raised a record $45.7 billion selling bonds denominated in dollars, euros and yen last year, 21 percent higher than in 2004.

Asian share sales excluding Japan this year totaled $26.8 billion, $79.4 billion in 2005, and $56.5 billion in 2004.