China Millionaires in Jeans Spur Wealth Manager Push Abroad

U.S.-listed Noah Holdings Ltd. is planning to set up branches in Vancouver and in Australia this year or early next year and looking into one in Singapore, said group president Kenny Lam in an interview in Shanghai. Even as China clamps down on large overseas corporate acquisitions, Noah Holdings believes that the revenue earned by medium-sized Chinese companies with business operations outside the nation will support a substantial part of its overseas growth.

„When I joined Noah three years ago, I thought clients in second- and third-tier cities had no demand for overseas investment,“ said Lam, who had worked for 15 years at McKinsey & Co. before Noah. „Then my team brought me to a client meeting in one of those cities, where I met many low-profile entrepreneurs who wore T-shirts and jeans and couldn‘t speak English. When they told me they had hundreds of millions of dollars overseas because of their businesses outside China, I was really surprised.“