By Paritosh Bansal (Reuters) - A European private wealth manager in Hong Kong told me last week he recently got the catalyst he needed to land a Taiwanese billionaire's account: geopolitics. The billionaire was down to two major wealth managers -- UBS and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM ) -- after Credit Suisse’s demise last year. He wanted a third bank but did not want to increase exposure to the Americans.
The Taiwanese tycoon's worry, the banker said, stemmed from the uncertainty caused by China-U.S. tensions: What if the Americans turned against people like him, or U.
S. banks came under pressure to pull back from business there? In recent years, as the Sino-U.S.
saber rattling has increased, I have repeatedly heard from sources in the United States about how companies and investors are de-risking from China, building resiliency in their supply chains, reducing their exposure and putting a higher risk premium to business there. China is still too big a market to ignore or abandon, they say, but they need a backup, a ‘China plus 1’. Over the past few days in Hong Kong and Singapore, conversations with more than a dozen senior bankers, officials and investors show the same de-risking is happening on the other end of the world with equal urgency.
People are asking what’s their 'America plus 1.' Wealthy people like the Taiwanese billionaire are diversifying their assets and exposure away from the United States. Companies are looking for additional funding sources from other .