Barrenjoey’s equities boss Chris Williams flags growth plans after opening Hong Kong office
Barrenjoey’s head of equities says the investment bank is ‘pleased but not satisfied’ with its overall growth trajectory, as he outlined plans to accelerate expansion of the business.
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Barrenjoey’s head of equities, Chris Williams, said the homegrown investment bank was “pleased but not satisfied” with its overall growth trajectory, as he expressed plans to accelerate the expansion of the business over the next five years.
Mr Williams’ comments came after Barclays-backed Barrenjoey, which was established in 2020, on Monday announced the opening of a small Hong Kong office, after it pushed into Abu Dhabi last year.
The firm’s Hong Kong presence will focus on providing equities sales, trading and research to Asian clients.
The Hong Kong office takes Barrenjoey’s office tally to five, given the firm’s Australian presence spans Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
In 2022, Barrenjoey secured a trans-Tasman deal with New Zealand firm Forsyth Barr to share access to research, advisory and capital markets services.
“These are very targeted, very deliberate and considered decisions,” Mr Williams said.
“We’ve got to ensure that we position ourselves that we can grow the business even more over the next five years.
“So the next five years is better and bigger, and we’re more ambitious about the next five years than we’ve been about the last five years.”
The firm does not, however, have grand plans to push into offshore markets in a significant way in the near term, according to Mr Williams.
He noted Barrenjoey already had an equity sales person working in New York, based within Barclays’ office there.
Barrenjoey, which counts former UBS rainmakers Matthew Grounds and Guy Fowler as co-executive chairmen, has gained traction domestically in recent years after enduring a tough early slog as the firm was built. Barrenjoey declared a maiden dividend of $11m and reported a net profit of $34.7m for the 12 months ended June 30, 2024, reversing a loss.
Industry stakeholders have, however, repeatedly argued that the Australian investment banking sector is too crowded for the size of the market, which triggers intense competition for trading and dealmaking work.
Former Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe last year joined the board of Barrenjoey, which is led by independent chairman David Gonski.
“We’re seeing growth across all parts of the business,” Mr Williams said.
“The bit that we’re optimistic and ambitious about improving this year, which has been tough for a couple of years, is ECM (equity capital markets) ... we’re hopeful that we see sponsors (private equity) reactivate and re-engage with the capital markets.”
Asked how Barrenjoey would fare given Wall Street banks were markedly ramping up their technology spend and investment in artificial intelligence, Mr Williams said: “We decided that we weren’t going to be a software development house ...
“We rent vendor platforms across our business, we don’t develop. We do integrate in-house.
“We think that in most cases you will find better and more modern, flexible, architected software that is available from vendors that are specialists in those different fields.”
Mr Williams noted, though, that on the technology side Barrenjoey was a cloud-based firm and had a longstanding internal working group focused on ChatGPT and machine-learning applications.
“We’re very careful and deliberate about how we deploy it,” he said. “I don’t want to, you know, promote or suggest that it is transformational in the way that we use it, but we are using it in-house.”
Barrenjoey’s opening of a Abu Dhabi Global Market office in 2024 was aimed at providing fixed income Australian dollar and New Zealand dollar sales and trading services in the northern hemisphere’s time zone.
In Hong Kong, Barrenjoey bought a licence and entity from its alliance partner Forsyth Barr to expedite its market entry, acquiring the latter’s business there.
Barrenjoey’s head of Asia distribution Angus McGeoch, a former senior CLSA banker, said customers in the region would benefit from an on-the-ground Hong Kong presence.
Originally published as Barrenjoey’s equities boss Chris Williams flags growth plans after opening Hong Kong office
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