SG Complains

The current head of SGX’s retail business tendered his resignation last month and will serve his last day on June 30, a company spokesperson said in response to TODAY queries.

The resignation came just less than two years since Mr Liew joined the bourse on Sept 1, 2005. He had gone over with 20-odd years of banking experience that last saw him heading ABN Amro’s unit for consumer and commercial clients in South-east Asia.

“He was well known for taking a very aggressive stance in ABN with regards to pricing home loans and wealth management products,” an industry source said of Mr Liew, an ex-Citibanker who went on to oversee OCBC’s group consumer services in Singapore and Malaysia at one point.

At SGX, Mr Liew’s task was to interest individuals to invest in stocks and alternative products such as structured warrants. Since then, retail participation in the market has grown alongside a proliferation of educational seminars for the man in the street.

Mr Liew could not be reached for comment on where he is headed next.

Separately, another top SGX executive is making headlines for his ambitious goals.

Mr Lawrence Wong, head of listings and executive vice president, wants more than half of the companies floated on the bourse to be foreign by 2012, according to a report yesterday in the Financial Times.

No leading global bourse had more foreign than local listings, the newspaper noted. It also cited data showing that as of last month, 37 per cent of the 738 companies on SGX’s mainboard and junior Sesdaq board were from overseas.

“We expect to see more and more companies listed here from overseas and it could be a majority. This may happen within the next five years,” Mr Wong was quoted as saying. He is also eyeing companies with a market capitalisation of up to $3 billion.