Barclays beefs up iShares’ Asia-Pacific team

Barclays Global Investors North Asia Ltd. announced today that iShares, the firm’s exchange traded fund unit, has expanded its Asia management team. David Gardner has joined the team as managing director and head of sales, iShares Asia-Pacific, in the firm's headquarters in Hong Kong. Joseph Cavatoni also joined as managing director of iShares Asia Capital Markets. The firm also announced the appointments of Eleanor Seet as senior director of iShares Private Wealth Distribution and Anthony Chan as iShares senior investment strategist. "The market for ETFs in Asia continues to expand at a rapid rate," Nick Good, chief executive of iShares Asia-Pacific, said in a statement. "To meet the growing demand, iShares has significantly strengthened its regional management team with new client service support for institutional investors, private-wealth managers and our capital markets partners." Separately, BlackRock Inc. of New York confirmed this week that it's in talks with Barclays PLC of London to acquire its money management subsidiary Barclay's Global Investors of San Francisco, including the iShares unit. BGI had $1.5 trillion in assets under management as of Dec. 31.