Building bases in eastward expansion

One of the discussion themes at the recent conference in Vienna on trends in Central and Eastern Europe, organised by PWM in collaboration with BNP Paribas Asset Management, revolved around the decision of where to locate the head office in the region. International firms such as Raiffeisen and Sal.Oppenheim considered it essential when entering the region to be based and operate locally. Austrian bank Raiffeisen has its head office in Vienna, but with every acquisition further East, it sets up a local office. Sal. Oppenheim, Germany’s largest private bank, is based in Cologne, but will look at adding new offices as it moves East. But Borno Janekovic, sales head of Central and Eastern Europe at Franklin Templeton in Warsaw, added a little spice to the panel debate, when he described his sales activity in the region by flying in from Dubai during the past few years. “We found that there was no reason to sit alone in the Warsaw office waiting for the only client to come in,” he said. In the past three years Mr Janekovic’s sales from Dubai have been effective, if not odd. The company’s Sicav funds are now registered in four countries – Latvia, Estonia, Poland and the Czech Republic – and the plan is to register them in an additional four countries during the next few months.