Return of Asian 'moneybags'

Asia's rich are again favoring the leveraged investments that backfired on them during last year's market turmoil, according to the head of DBS Group Holdings Ltd's wealth management unit.

"Investors have short memories," Amy Yip, who oversaw Hong Kong's $245 billion foreign-reserves fund before joining Southeast Asia's biggest bank in 2006, said in an interview in Hong Kong. "Many of the Asian clients are back in the very aggressive leveraged posture that they had adopted in the fall of 2008."

Rich investors in Asia are borrowing more to fuel returns, spurred by record-low interest rates and a stock market recovery. That approach cost them last year, when their assets fell more than the global average.