By Paolo Danese
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| Jonathan Slone, chief executive of CLSA |
When China’s Citic Securities acquired CLSA in 2013, many in the market wondered if the fiercely independent equity brokerage would be able to maintain the distinctive approach to research and sales that had made it so popular with clients across Asia.
The following year’s Asiamoney Brokers Poll hinted that, indeed, CLSA’s star was waning as it joined forces with one of China’s most powerful financial institutions. In 2014, it slipped from Asia’s leading brokerage overall for combined regional research and sales to third place, behind UBS and HSBC.
It lost top ranking in Japan to Nomura, its overall regional sales leadership and, perhaps most galling of all, slipped to second place in the overall Asia ex-Australia and Japan rankings.
Sure, it still had more top-ranked individual analysts than any other firm, but was something deeper amiss?
Fast-forward to the end of 2017 and the announcement of the latest Asiamoney Brokers Poll results, based on close to 6,700 votes across the region.
It’s a little over a year since all of Citic Securities’ international operations were brought under the CLSA brand.