Gary Coull

Who was Gary Coull?

Gary Coull was a co-founder and chairman of CLSA, a brokerage house specializing in Asia-Pacific stock markets.

Born in Canada, Coull graduated in 1976 from the University of British Columbia with a bachelor of arts. From 1977 to 1983, he working as a business journalist for the South China Morning Post and the Far Eastern Economic Review.

In 1983, Coull left journalism and started a small China investment and trading company. Several years later, he joined a Hong Kong brokerage firm, Winfull Laing et Cruickshank. The French bank, Crédit Lyonnais subsequently took over Laing, bought out Winfull, and created the platform for what became CLSA. In 2003, Crédit Lyonnais merged with Crédit Agricole.

Coull and a fellow journalist, Australian Jim Walker, co-founded CLSA in 1986. Coull was influential in attracting international investors to Asia via, for example, CLSA's annual investors' forum in Hong Kong. The annual forums in May, and since 2003 in September, included mid-week parties that featured well-known, but ageing pop stars, as well as sessions by former and current heads of state.