| CFO PROFILES |
October 2007 |
GOODBYE, SINGAPORE
By Cesar Bacani and Jennifer Lee
When DBS Group Holdings’ CFO-turned-CEO Jackson Tai surprised the markets by resigning in September, the speculation was that he was Asia’s first casualty of the subprime mortgage mess. In August, the Singapore bank revealed that its exposure to U.S. collateralized debt obligations totaled S$2.4 billion (US$1.6 billion), twice what it initially reported.
The two events are probably unrelated. “Within the analyst community, we had always expected Jack to leave anytime,” says Ismael Pili, ASEAN banks analyst at Macquarie Research Equities in Singapore. “It’s become a running joke—whenever you see Jack, you ask him when he’s going to go.” An American citizen born to Chinese immigrant parents, Tai had vowed to stay only three years in Singapore, since his family had opted to stay in America.
As it turned out, that self-imposed limit got stretched to eight years. A 25-year veteran with JPMorgan in the United States, Tai was a San Francisco-based managing director in charge of 13 western states when he was tapped to become DBS CFO in 1999 by JPMorgan colleague John Olds, who was named DBS CEO in 1998. Tai became president and COO in 2001 when Olds left, and then was elevated to CEO in 2002.
He leaves behind a financial institution that has transformed from being a Singapore-centric government entity (DBS stands for Development Bank of Singapore) into a regional powerhouse with operations in 15 markets, including China, India, and Indonesia. Board chairman Koh Boon Hwee, who temporarily takes over as CEO, credits Tai for being “instrumental in growing DBS’s geographical reach and strengthening our Asian franchise.”
What about the subprime problem? “Our total CDO exposures make up only 1 percent of our overall assets,” says group CFO Jeannette Wong, who is said to be in the running for the CEO post. DBS has launched an extensive global search, however, so another outsider could have the job. As for the 57-year-old Tai, there should be a number of CEO and CFO openings back home, as top honchos are forced to step down to take responsibility for the subprime fiasco.  |
CFOs on the Move
Nissan is getting some Formula 1 expertise in the form of a new CFO, Alain Dassas, who was president of Renault’s Formula 1 team. Nissan’s last CFO, Thierry Moulonguet, returned to Renault in 2003 after three years of nursing the ailing company back to financial health. But the company has recently reported declining profits and Dassas is being sent to stabilize Nissan’s finances ... Mary Ma, former CFO of China’s Lenovo, will join private equity firm TPG as a partner and managing director … Philip Chu has resigned as CFO of Singapore-based Datacraft Asia, but will stay until January … Singapore’s Suntec REIT is losing its director of finance, Ho Liam Shin, who has resigned … Shoeib Reza Choudhury takes over as CFO of logistics company DHL Express Singapore … Larry Wei Fan is the new CFO at OTCBB-listed China World Trade, a club and business center operator in China. He replaces Man Ha, who resigned in August … CFO Zhang Yong has resigned from Shanda Interactive Entertainment. His post will be taken over by the on-line games operator’s president, Tang Jun … Charlene Hua is the new CFO at China Technology Development Group. She comes to the post from Citigroup Global Markets, where she was a vice president … China Sunergy’s CFO, James Shaofeng Qi, has resigned. He will be temporarily replaced at the solar cell manufacturer by Zhu Zhiping, finance manager of CEEG (Nanjing) PV Tech, China Sunergy’s operating unit. – Jennifer Lee |
