Singapore’s Bourse Names Loh Boon Chye CEO, Replacing Bocker

(Bloomberg) Singapore Exchange Ltd. named investment banker Loh Boon Chye as chief executive officer, replacing Magnus Bocker at the helm of Southeast Asia’s biggest bourse.

Loh, 51, will start at SGX July 14, the exchange said in a regulatory filing Monday. Bocker will step down at the end of this month after a 5 1/2-year tenure. Loh was formerly Bank of America Corp.’s head of Asia Pacific global markets.

Loh will lead SGX as it seeks to spur trading volumes and fend off competition from international rivals expanding in Singapore. While Bocker helped develop the exchange’s derivatives business, he also presided over a failed bid for Australia’s bourse operator and apologized in December for power outages that disrupted trading. SGX shares gained 3.3 percent from Bocker’s arrival in December 2009 through last week, trailing the Straits Times Index’s 22 percent advance.

“The biggest challenge for the new CEO is how to revive trading in the stock market,” Bernard Aw, a strategist at IG Ltd. in Singapore, said by phone. “They also need to improve their infrastructure to prevent future outages. The trading disruptions last year is really damaging to their reputation.”

Evolving Landscape

Loh sits on the board of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte and was a director of the city-state’s stock exchange for almost a decade through 2012. He joined Bank of America in 2012 from Deutsche Bank AG.

SGX shares fell 2.3 percent to S$7.93 at the Singapore close, before the announcement was made. That took year-to-date gains to 1.5 percent, compared with a 1.3 percent decline in the benchmark gauge.

“In a rapidly evolving financial landscape, SGX has to adapt to stay ahead and I look forward to working with the stellar team towards this goal,” Loh, who had a 26-year career in the financial industry after getting his engineering degree from the National University of Singapore, said in the statement.

Bocker received a bonus of S$2 million ($1.5 million) in 2014, taking his total remuneration for the year to S$3.78 million, according to the SGX annual report. He received S$4.1 million the year before.

by Chanyaporn Chanjaroen, Jonathan Burgos and Joyce Koh

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