'Mahendran advises family offices in S’pore and ME?'

Former Central Bank Governor and fugitive Arjuna Mahendran was quoted in an article published on South African newspaper 'The Business Day', which described him of now ‘advising several family offices in Singapore and the Middle East.’

The article published in the 'Business Day' website on Sunday identified Mahendran as a former governor of the central bank of Sri Lanka and former chief investment officer at Emirates NBD Wealth Management.

The article is focused on Deutsche Bank securing commitment for additional investment from Qatar as the bank seeks to bolster its finances. It said the Deutsche Bank faces broadening US scrutiny as a leading Republican legislator joined Democratic colleagues in questioning the lender’s steps to combat money-laundering amid reports that its US unit may have been a key conduit for dirty cash.

The quotes of Mahendran by the newspaper as follows:

“There’s a potential liability ahead in case the bank is fined by the regulators in the US for those accusations of money laundering,” said Arjuna Mahendran, a former central bank of Sri Lanka governor and former chief investment officer at Emirates NBD Wealth Management.

“The fear is that you can’t quantify the fine, that’s the known and unknown. So they may do both, get the Qataris to put in some equity and merge with Commerz bank to fill any holes created by having to pay the anticipated fine,” he said.

“It makes sense for the Qataris to increase their stake in Deutsche Bank as Qatar strategically wants to establish linkages with European countries and the US to diversify,” said Mahendran, who now advises several family offices in Singapore and the Middle East.

“The merger with Commerzbank makes sense to get a bigger balance sheet, which means they will have more cushion to absorb any shocks to a potentially large fine from the regulators.”