StanChart sets up RMB team
Standard Chartered has formed a new four-member RMB Solutions team, to help keep pace with the internationalisation of the Chinese currency.
Hong Kong-based Carmen Ling is the global head of the team, handling origination and client coverage. She joins from Citi, where she was most recently head of global transaction services for Hong Kong. In her new position, Ling will report to Darcy Lai, regional head of origination and client coverage.
Other team members are Caroline Owen, regional head of RMB Solutions for Americas, Alexandra Gropp, the regional head for Europe, and Lisa O’Connor, director.
Owen, who is based in New York, will report to Jeremy Bollington, who heads origination and client coverage for the Americas. Before joining the renminbi team, Owen was head of debt capital markets, North America, at Standard Chartered.
Gropp will report to Tarek Anwar, head of origination and client coverage for Europe. She previously worked in the bank’s capital markets team, which involved working on dim sum deals. O’Connor will be based in Hong Kong and report to Ling. She joins from Swift, where she held the position of initiative director for RMB internationalisation.
J.P. Morgan hires in Singapore
J.P. Morgan has hired Edmund Lee as senior country officer for Singapore. He will join the bank from DBS Vickers Securities, where he is currently chairman and chief executive, according to an internal memo.
Lee is expected to start at the end of September, subject to regulatory approvals, and will report to Rob Priestley, chief executive of J.P. Morgan’s Asean operations. In his new position, Lee will lead operations in Singapore across all lines of business, and will also manage relationships with the government, business and regulatory bodies, added the memo.
Lee, who has almost 30 years of industry experience, will join after 12 years as the chairman and chief executive of DBS Vickers, where he was heading operations across Hong Kong, Indonesia, London, Malaysia, New York, Singapore and Thailand.
Rowe to head Asia fixed income trading at Mizuho
Damian Rowe will join Mizuho as managing director and head of fixed income trading for Asia Pacific ex-Japan. He will be based in Hong Kong. He takes on the role left empty by Jeffrey Yap in May.
He joins the firm from Crédit Agricole where he was managing director and head of credit trading for debt and credit markets across Asia ex-Japan. Before this he held senior credit trading and management roles at Citi in Hong Kong and ABN Amro in Australia.
Nomura adds to Asia equities team from BoA-Merrill
Nomura has made a series of appointments to its Asia ex-Japan equities and equity derivatives management teams, according to an internal memo seen by Asiamoney PLUS. They will all report to Yasuhiro Fujiwara, head of equities for Asia ex-Japan and head of equity derivatives trading for Asia Pacific.
Stanley Wong has joined from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BoA-Merrill) as head of North Asia equity distribution, based in Hong Kong. He was most recently head of greater China equity distribution, and has 17 years of industry experience. Seamus Hanly will continue in his role as head of equity syndication for Asia ex-Japan.
Ajay Gupta will also join the team as head of client trading for Asia ex-Japan, effective from the end of August. He will be based in Hong Kong. He has over 20 years experience with BoA-Merrill and UBS. He was most recently head of equity-linked trading for the Pacific Rim.
Laurent Poirot and Vincent Yam have both joined the trading team from BoA-Merrill and will report to Gupta. Poirot was head of delta one trading for Asia Pacific in his previous position and will take on the role of head of flow index and data one for Asia ex-Japan. Yam, Nomura’s new head of greater China trading, most recently oversaw the liquidity trading team in Hong Kong at BoA-Merrill.
ANZ gains one on loan sales
Ray Wong is joining Australia and New Zealand Bank as an associate director in the Asian loans sales team.
Wong, who is currently on gardening leave and will begin his new position in October, will be based in Hong Kong and report to Cecily Fan, who heads up loan sales.
Wong joins from the Royal Bank of Scotland, where he was a member of the loans team. At ANZ, Wong replaces Eddie Wong, who recently jumped ship to the syndication team at Credit Suisse.
Bank J. Safra Sarasin hires client advisory MD
Jeffrey Benjamin has joined Bank J. Safra Sarasin in Singapore as managing director of client advisory, effective immediately. He will report to Eric Morin, chief executive officer for Singapore and Southeast Asia.
Benjamin joins from HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) in Singapore, where he was a managing director and team head of international private wealth from early 2011. He joined HSBC from Investec Bank in London, where he was head of specialised opportunities, wealth management, and worked with the bank from 1999 to 2010.
East Capital adds to HK team
Emerging and frontier markets firm East Capital has increased the size of its Hong Kong team. Karine Hirn, partner and co-founder of East Capital, together with senior advisers Dmitriy Vlasov and Adrian Pop have recently relocated to Hong Kong to cover China and other markets in emerging Asia.
The company opened its Hong Kong office in 2006. In 2010, Hirn left her role as CEO to move to Shanghai to lead investments in Asia for the firm’s equity fund range. Vlasov also moves from Shanghai, where he has been for the past three years, with East Capital. He will continue to focus on the firm’s China strategy. Pop joined the Hong Kong team earlier this year to oversea the Asean business.
StormHarbour adds four to Singapore team
Financial advisory firm StormHarbour has made four appointments to its Singapore office. Sandeep Gill, Barry Dick, Martin Otway and Nicholas Loh have all joined from OPVS Group, an alternative asset management firm.
Gill and Dick co-founded OPVS Group. Before this, Gill was global head and managing director of structured credit and derivatives at DBS. In his new role, he will be responsible for structuring across Asia Pacific. Dick was previously head of fixed income sales at Merrill Lynch for Asia ex-Japan.
Otway and Loh join as directors after working in senior roles at OPVS Group. Otway was formerly treasurer and head of credit trading for Unicredit in Singapore. Loh worked at law firm Legal 21, based in Singapore.
Cleary joins Orrick as co-head of Asia energy and infra
Peter Cleary has joined Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe as co-head of the Asia energy and infrastructure group, based in Hong Kong. He will share the role with co-head Yoichi Katayama, who is based in Japan.
He joins the firm from RAK Petroleum Public Company, a UEA-based oil company, where he was general counsel and secretary to the board of directors. Before this he worked as director and general counsel of the multilateral investment guarantee agency (MIGA) at the World Bank from 2005 to 2010, and as a partner at international law firms.