Mizuho Securities Co., Japan’s third- largest brokerage by market value, hired Alastair Sclater to head its prime brokerage business in Singapore, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

Sclater, the former head of UBS AG’s Singapore prime brokerage business, starts at Mizuho in August, the people said, asking not to be identified because it hasn’t been announced. He resigned from the Swiss bank in May. Yasunori Fukuda, a spokesman at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo, declined to comment.

Tokyo-based Mizuho joins Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc. in expanding their prime services teams in Asia as the region leads the global economic recovery. Firms are targeting the growing number of small hedge-fund managers in Singapore that could generate trading-fee income, said Robb Baiad, a senior partner at executive search firm Meridian Partners.

 

“This mid-market was generally ignored,” Singapore-based Baiad said. “If you had US$20 million ($27.7 million) or say US$30 million and went to a bulge bracket firm, most would have said ‘come back when you have a billion,’ but now there’s a market that could generate money.”

 

About 70% of the hedge funds launched in Asia in the past two years had US$50 million or less as of the end of March, according to Singapore-based consulting firm GFIA Pte.

 

Mizuho started electronic trading in Asia after hiring a team of 16 former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. employees in November 2008, targeting hedge funds and institutional investors with electronic products and systems for equities trading, two executives familiar with the plan said then.

 

Prime brokers provide services such as stock-, cash-lending and trade clearing. The consulting business and capital introduction teams help hedge funds set up offices and introduce them to potential investors.