King had managed RBS’s Asian DCM team on a sole basis for the last year, and before that ran it alongside Roland Hinterkoerner, now head of corporate advisory for Asia Pacific at the bank. But King resigned from RBS last Friday, and is now understood to be heading to Jefferies.
He left RBS less than two months after Guy Wylie joined as head of primary markets. Wylie, who had previously run Asian DCM at UBS, has taken a fairly structured approach to the debt business, laying out firm plans to win more mandates among Chinese clients, in particular.
It is not yet clear whether RBS will replace King, but the bank has both Wylie and John Wade, head of DCM and syndicate in Asia Pacific, to cover the business in the near-term, at least.
King joined Abn Amro in 2004, and moved to RBS when it bought the Dutch bank in October 2007. He has previously worked for HSBC, JPMorgan and Merrill Lynch.
King could not be reached for comment.