Agarwal to head IB in Singapore at CIMB
CIMB’s Manoj Agarwal has been named head of investment banking for Singapore. He moves to head up the city-state from his position as co-head of equity markets for Asia Pacific (Apac), alongside Patrick Tan.
He will move from Hong Kong to Singapore during the next few months, according to Asiamoney PLUS’s sister publication EuroWeek Asia. His ECM duties will be taken over by Matthew Kirkby, CEO for Hong Kong and co-head of investment banking for Apac.
Agarwal was part of the Royal Bank of Scotland team of bankers that joined CIMB after the bank bought RBS’ Apac cash equities and investment banking businesses last April.
BoA-Merrill scraps role of Oz equities chief
Head of equities for Australia at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Matthew Unsworth, has left and will not be replaced, according to a spokesperson for the bank. Equities staff in trading, risk and sales will now all report to Hong Kong instead of Sydney.
ANZ chief economist joins S&P
Paul Gruenwald has been appointed chief economist for Asia Pacific at Standard & Poor’s. He will be based in Singapore and report to Paul Sheard, chief global economist and head of global economics and research, and to Yu-Tsung Chang, executive management director and head of Asia Pacific.
Gruenwald moves from ANZ where he was chief economist for Asia Pacific. He has also worked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Choi and Cho to lead CIMB Korea
CIMB Group has opened its brokerage and corporate advisory businesses in Seoul, South Korea, after gaining approval from the Financial Services Commission (FSC) of Korea.
The team will be 39-strong and will be headed up by John Choi, branch manager and head of equities, and Sean Cho, head of investment banking.
Nomura moves equities COO to Instinet
Shaun Bramham has been named head of Instinet’s Asia Pacific business. Instinet is the independent equity trading arm of the Nomura Group, and Bramham moves from his role as COO for Asia ex-Japan equities at Nomura. He takes over from Glenn Lesko who will move to the US to be global head of client strategy and US international and product sales.
Bramham has more than 17 years of industry experience. He started his career at Lehman Brothers in 1996 in the fixed income operations team in London. After this he held senior roles in operations in New York, Tokyo and Hong Kong. He became global head of Nomura’s execution services equity operations in 2009 before moving to his current role in 2011.
Jaccard to head HK Citi TS
Philippe Jaccard has become country head of Citi Transactions Services (CTS) for Hong Kong. He will report to Amol Gupte, CTS regional head for Asia Pacific and Weber Lo, CEO and Citi Country officer Hong Kong.
Jaccard was most recently CTS Asia Pacific head of liquidity and investments. He started his career with Citi in Singapore in 2000. In 2002 he headed up Citi’s treasury services business before taking on the head of liquidity and investment role in 2007. Before Citi he worked at Cargill in North America, Europe and Asia.
Tan to lead DBS consumer banking and WM
Tan Su Shan will take on the role of group head of consumer banking and wealth management at DBS. Tan has been head of wealth management at the Singaporean bank since July 2010 and will take on her expanded role from April 15 this year.
Tan’s previous role included heading DBS Treasures, DBS Treasures Private Client and DBS Private Bank. In her new role she takes over from Tan Kong Khoon, who is leaving DBS and leaving Singapore. According to the bank, the departure is for personal reasons.
In other news, Domenic Fuda, chief financial officer (CFO) of consumer banking has been named deputy group head of consumer banking and wealth management. Fuda will report to Tan. He will also be appointed to DBS’ group management committee.
Fuda joined DBS in March 2010 and has worked in consumer banking and wealth management for 20 years. Before joining DBS he worked at Citigroup for 15 years, most recently as chief operating officer for Southeast Asia Pacific, Australia and New Zealand.
DeAWM hires Narasiah as Apac COO
Venkatesh Narasiah has been appointed chief operating officer (COO) for Asia Pacific at Deutsche Asset and Wealth Management (DeAWM), Asia Pacific. He takes over immediately from Boris Liedtke who will move to a position DeAWM’s global operating platform and re-engineering group.
Narasiah will report globally to Jon Eilbeck, global COO for DeAWM and regionally to Ravi Raju, head of DeAWM for Asia Pacific. He was previously sub-market head for Australia, Japan and India in the private wealth management division (PWM) for Asia Pacific.
He joined Deutsche Bank in 2007 as chief operating officer, PWM, Asia Pacific. The division was later merged with Deutsche Asset Management to become DeAWM. Before joining the bank, Narasiah worked for Citibank for 20 years.
Nikko AM president to retire
Bill Wilder, president of Nikko Asset Management will retire at the end of this fiscal year. Charles Beazley will take over as president on April 1. Wilder joined the firm in 2004 as president and chief investment officer.
In January, Yu-Ming Wang was hired as international chief investment officer and Hiroki Tsujimura was promoted to chief investment officer for Japan, in order to help the transition between Wilder and Beazley. Beazley became chairman and CEO in April 2012.
Ho joins Sidley Austin LLP
Han Ming Ho, will join Sidley Austin LLP’s Singapore office as a partner, focusing on international funds. He will co-head the Asia Investment Funds practice with Effie Vasilopoulos, a Hong Kong based partner at the firm.
Ho’s history is in advising on investment funds, including hedge funds, private equity funds, real estate funds, exchange traded funds and other structured financial products.