BoA-Merrill in GTS Asia Pacific shake-up
Nirmal Khaderia has been appointed head of Asia Pacific corporate sales at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. All country sales heads in the region will report to him, effective immediately, according to an internal memo seen by Asiamoney PLUS.
He joined the bank in 2011 as head of India sales and was later appointed head of India global transaction services (GTS). He will continue in his position as head of India GTS and will remain based in Mumbai. He will relocate to Hong Kong in due course.
Stefan Leijdekkers will continue to head up the regional corporate sales team, covering pan-Asia. He will relocate from Hong Kong to Singapore. Both will report to Percy Batilwalla, head of Asia Pacific sales, who is also based in Singapore.
VTB Capital adds credit trader Koh
Russian investment bank VTB capital has hired Bryan Ko as head of investment grade credit trading in Asia as well as three senior credit traders, according to Asiamoney PLUS’ sister publication EuroWeek Asia.
Ko has joined the Hong Kong office, from Citi, where he has worked since 2010. Before this he worked for ten years at Morgan Stanley. He will report directly to Ugo Calcagnini, global head of credit trading.
Lazard hires Bhattal as senior advisor
Lazard has appointed Jesse Bhattal as a senior advisor, effective immediately. He will advise senior management on clients and strategy internationally, but with a focus on Asia Pacific.
He joins from Nomura, where he was president and CEO of the bank’s global wholesale division. Before this he was chairman and CEO of Lehman Brothers, Asia.
Credit Suisse Australia names CEO
Rob Stewart has been appointed CEO of Credit Suisse Australia. He will take on the new role as well alongside his current job as co-head of the investment banking department. The change will be effective from February 1.
He takes over from David Livingstone who has been CEO of Australia at the bank since the start of 2010. He is relocating to London and remains with the bank.
Stewart will head up the private banking, wealth management and investment banking divisions in Australia. He has worked at Credit Suisse for almost 20 years.
ABN Amro hires team from ANZ
ABN Amro Private Banking has made 11 hires to its high-net-worth-individual focused teams in Hong Kong and Singapore, including a seven-strong team from ANZ Singapore.
The Singapore team is headed by Bert Stegink who returns to the bank from his position as head of expatriates and rest of the world clients at ANZ. Benoit Strappazon, Jos Kleijne, Horst Hagemann, Matt Clark, Pierre Valentin and Jerry Leng, will take on a variety of roles in private banking.
Leong Khin Meng joins the Singapore office as head of business process improvement and Paul Jessup will join as vice president within the business development team. They will move to the newly created roles from Standard Chartered Bank and ANZ respectively.
Meanwhile, Michael Pak has joined the Hong Kong office of ABN Amro from Goldman Sachs Private Wealth Management as investment counsellor. Alan Lam as joined as senior portfolio manager equities, from Julius Baer.
Credit Agricole Suisse in Singapore reshuffle
Roland Feser, CEO of Credit Agricole Suisse’s Singapore branch will retire in March 2013, after working for the Credit Agricole group for 38 years. He has headed up the Singapore office since July 1, 2008.
He will be replaced by the current Hong Kong-based head of markets and investment solutions for Asia, Sen Sui. He will relocate to Singapore in January in order to begin his new role.
Sui will be replaced by the current head of FX and precious metals advisory for Asia, Victor Choi, who will be promoted to head of markets and investment solutions in Asia, responsible for the advisory and forex product teams across Asia.
Dong Sinh Ngo will join the firm as head of Hong Kong advisory, a position held by Sui. Ngo joins from BNP Paribas Asset Management where he was chief strategist for emerging markets and Asia. He has worked in asset management and private banking for over 19 years.
Fu joins BNY Mellon as distribution MD
Eric Fu has joined BNY Mellon in a newly created role as a managing director within the company’s intermediary distribution team.
He will be based in Hong Kong and report to Navin Suri, head of intermediary distribution for Asia Pacific. Fu has worked in asset and wealth management for more than 22 years.
BlackRock appoints N Asia alts head
Jeong Hoon Lee has joined BlackRock as head of the firm’s alternative investment strategy group for North Asia. He joined the company on January 8 and is based in Seoul.
The role is newly created and follows on from the hire of Joseph Pacini as head of alternative investment strategy group for Asia Pacific and Andrew Landman as head of alternatives in Australia in March and December last year.
Lee will report to Pacini. He joins BlackRock from his position as head of the Fortress Investment Group in Seoul. Before this, he worked for Darby Private Equity, a subsidiary of Franklin Templeton Investments.
Fung joins Heitman in Hong Kong
Karena Fung has joined Heirman’s Hong Kong office as a senior equity analyst for Asia Pacific public real estate securities. She will report to John White, managing director and lead portfolio manager for Asia Pacific.
She joins from UBS Global Asset Management where she was a senior analyst and portfolio manager on the global real estate securities team for six years, with a focus on the Asia Pacific region. Before this she worked as an equities analyst for Hong Kong and China properties at Credit Suisse.
Sutton returns to J.P. Morgan AM
Heidi Sutton has joined J.P. Morgan asset management as chief marketing officer for Asia Pacific. She will be based in Hong Kong and lead the marketing teams across the region.
She joins the firm from Goldman Sachs Asset Management where she was a managing director and head of marketing strategy for Asia Pacific.
Before this she worked for JPMorgan Fleming Asset Management. After the merger in 2011 between Fleming and J.P. Morgan, she moved to First State Investments in London.
La Trobe appoints two board directors
Fund manager La Trobe Financial has appointed John Carrello and John Marriott to its board. Carrello has more than 25 years experience in business reconstruction and insolvency.
Marriott has worked for more than 40 years working with Australian banks such as National Australia Bank (NAB), Westpac and ANZ.
At NAB he worked in senior roles in corporate and institutional banking, credit and project and structured finance. He also worked in the business acquisition team for the Major Client Group (MCG) with a focus on M&A transactions. At Westpac he was head of business acquisition.
Jaggy joins M&G Investments
Raphael Jaggy has been appointed business manager for Asia at M&G Investments. He will be based in Singapore and oversee legal, compliance and financial functions at the firm. He joined M&G at the end of last year, when the company set up offices in Singapore and Hong Kong.
He reports to Andrew Hendry, managing director, M&G Asia. He has 15 years of experience in asset management, most recently heading up financing operations for Capital Group Companies in Singapore, India, Hong Kong and Australia.
Barakat-Brown to head advisory at Religare
Jason Barakat-Brown has been named head of advisory at Religare Capital Markets, based in Singapore. He will be responsible for the firm’s corporate finance team, including M&A, origination and execution.
He has worked in the industry for 19 years, including nine years in Southeast Asia, specialising in M&A. He joins from Candor Advisory Partners, a firm he founded in 2012.
Until 2011 he was managing director and joint head of corporate finance and M&A for Southeast Asia at UBS. Before joining UBS in 2001, he worked for Jardine Fleming Ord Minnett and Schroders.
Clifford Chance adds Australia finance partner
Lending and leveraged finance partner at Clifford Chance, Caroline Jury, has relocated from London to Sydney to join the firm’s Australia branch. She joins finance partner Scott Bache.
Jury has been a partner at the law firm for 15 years, and built the finance practice for Clifford Chance in Germany. After the relocation, including the recent appointment of Dave Poddar to the Sydney team, the firm will have a total of 17 partners in Australia.