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INTERMEDIARY PROFILE HORWATH FINANCIAL SERVICES
Thriving firm, thriving market
Horwath Financial Services was less than 12 months old when Hong Kong returned
to China’s hands after 100 years of British rule. Since that time, both the special
administrative region and the company have been transformed
BY HELEN BURGGRAF
Like many British-born
expatriates who now call
Hong Kong home, David
Bojan was not fully aware
that he was emigrating in
1993, when, at the age of
30, he decided to take a
job with an IFA firm in
what was at that point
still a British colony – but
one that was due to be
handed over to China in
four years’ time.
“I had been in the financial
services industry since
1986 or so, in both
Birmingham and London,”
Bojan, now 46 and managing
director of Hong Kongbased
Horwath Financial
Services, recalls.
“I had moved around
quite a bit, but until that
point I had not worked
abroad. So it was as simple
as that. I did not come here
thinking I was only going
to be here for a couple of
years, though. I came with
an open mind.”
And so it was that, like
many of his customers
today, who are ex-pat
Britons working for multinational
banks and other
businesses, Bojan stayed
on, even long after the
UK’s civil servants had
packed their bags and left
in 1997.
l 13-year pedigree
As it happened, 1997 was
also the year that Bojan left
Jardine, where he had been
a senior financial adviser,
and joined Horwath
Financial Services as managing
director and a part
owner of the business. The
firm had been set up the
year before as the financial
advisory arm of the Hong
HORWATH FACTS
Founded: 1996, originally as arm of Horwath Hong Kong
Parent company: Professional Investment Services
Assets under advice: Not broken out; PIS reports AUA of A$17bn
No. of employees: 10 including 6 advisers
Location: Wanchai district of Hong Kong
No. of offices: 1
Kong office of Horwath, a
global network of accounting
firms that claims to be
the world’s ninth largest,
with some 558 offices in
102 countries.
Although the affiliation
with the Horwath Hong
Kong accountancy officially
ended two years ago,
when the advisory division
was sold to Australia-based
IFA giant Professional
Investment Services (PIS),
Bojan says Horwath
Financial Services still benefits
from the credibility
and prestige of having
been part of that widelyrespected
business.
What is more, although
the two Hong Kong
Horwath entities may no
longer share a balance
sheet, they evidently
remain on good terms.
They are still located in the
same office tower – the
Central Plaza building at
18 Harbour Road in Hong
Kong’s Wanchai district –
and Bojan’s advisory business
is still mentioned on
the Horwath Hong Kong
INTERNATIONAL ADVISER [www.international-adviser.com] AUGUST 2009
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