SGX names Friets as new securities head

The Singapore Exchange has announced the appointment of Nels Friets, as head of securities, and the resignation of Seck Wai Kwong, its chief financial officer.
By None

The Singapore Exchange (SGX) has announced the appointment of Nels Friets, as head of securities, and the resignation of Seck Wai Kwong, its chief financial officer (CFO).

Friets will report to Gan Seow Ann, co-president of SGX. In his new role, which he will take up before the end of June 2011, he will be tasked with growing the firm's securities market. Friets has previously chaired the SGX securities committee as well as having been a founding member of regulator the Securities Association of Singapore.

Prior to SGX, Friets was the strategic advisor to pan-Asian trading venue operator Chi-X Global, with which SGX launched Chi-East, a pan-Asian dark trading venue, on 11 November 2011.

He has previously worked as the managing director and head of equities (ASEAN) for Citigroup Global Markets and the managing director of broker CLSA Emerging Markets for Singapore and Malaysia.

Friets replaces Chew Sutat, executive vice president and head of corporate and market strategy, who will assume a new responsibility as the head of an expanded sales unit overseeing and integrating all sales functions across SGX.

The exchange's CFO, Kwong, is leaving SGX to take up a new role as executive vice president and general manager, global markets and global services (Asia Pacific) with custodian State Street Bank and Trust. His last day of service at SGX will be 10 June 2011. Kwong will be replaced in the interim as the acting CFO by Muthukrishnan Ramaswami, co-president of SGX.

SGX recently agreed to terminate merger discussions with the Australian Securities Exchange, initiated on 25 October 2010, following the Australian Treasurer's rejection of the proposed combination, on grounds that it was against the Australian national interest.

Market commentators have noted that SGX's investment cycle is to reach a peak this summer, with capital expenditure on the back of its REACH technology programme, Chi-East, and OTC derivatives clearing programme reaching S$65 million (US$52.5 million) at the end of the financial year in June 2011.

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