team, left after five years. His departure
followed that of A Rajagopal, regional head
of loan syndications for South Asia, who left
in February. Late last month, former Citigroup
banker Sameer Chandra joined StanChart to
replace Rajagopal. CITIGROUP has appointed Steven Lo as head of
private banking in Asia Pacific, according to an
internal memo IFR has seen.
Lo is a direct replacement for Bassam Salem,
who is due to retire in February after more than
20 years with the bank, split between two stints.
Lo will work with Salem during the transition
period before taking the reins in February. He
will remain based in Hong Kong.
Lo joined Citigroup’s private banking business
26 years ago in Vancouver and relocated to Asia
in 2001, holding a variety of different roles. WESTPAC BANKING CORP has affirmed Ananth
Ramachandran’s appointment as head of
corporate and institutional banking for Asia on a
permanent basis.
Ramachandran was appointed interim head
after David Koh left the Australian bank in May
to join Standard Chartered as regional head of
transaction banking for Greater China and North
Asia.
Ramachandran has been with Westpac for four
years and was previously Singapore-based
head of financial institutions, public sector and
healthcare for Asia within the CIB division.
He had previous stints with Standard Chartered,
JP Morgan and BNP Paribas.
Westpac recently hired Paul Lai from BBVA for
the newly created role of Greater China regional
head and regional head of CIB. BNP PARIBAS has promoted equity capital
markets banker Sylvain Magne to regional head
of transportation and infrastructure in Asia.
Magne, who is head of the equity-linked
business for Asia Pacific and deputy head of
ECM for North Asia, will take up the new role at
the end of November.
He has been with the French bank for over 10
years and relocated to Hong Kong nearly three
years ago.
BNP Paribas has also hired Karen Pang in Hong
Kong from Sun Hung Kai Financial to work on
both equity-linked and ECM deals.
She was with the Hong Kong-based brokerage
firm for just under a year and was previously
with Morgan Stanley and Bank of America
Merrill Lynch. ANZ has named Chris Raciti as Korea CEO,
according to sources and a press release on
Wednesday.
Raciti will start next month, subject to
regulatory approval, the release says. He will bebased in Seoul and will report to Grant Knuckey,
CEO of ANZ in Japan.
Raciti was most recently head of loan
syndications and specialised finance, North Asia.
He joined ANZ’s corporate and institutional
banking division as a graduate in Australia in
2002 before relocating to Seoul in 2005 to focus
on multinationals and Korean corporations.
Since then, he has held loan origination and
syndication roles in both Singapore and Hong
Kong.
“With his extensive experience at ANZ and
throughout the region, I am confident Chris’s
strong customer network and product expertise
will help further strengthen our well-established
business in Korea,” said Farhan Faruqui, group
executive, international, in the announcement. CIMB GROUP, Malaysia’s second-biggest bank
in asset terms, has scaled down its Hong Kong
equity capital markets and investment banking
operation in response to strong competition in
North Asian markets, according to two people
familiar with the situation.
Three Hong Kong-based bankers recently
left. They are Chris Marshall, head of ECM and
syndicate for North Asia, Roger Lam, managing
director, head of equity-linked origination, Hong
Kong and Taiwan ECM, and Marcin Nowakowski,
a TMT coverage banker in investment banking,
say the people.
A third person familiar with the situation has
said CIMB does not plan to replace Marshall and
Lam, but the TMT coverage role in Singapore
will be filled.
The bank has decided to downsize the Hong
Kong operation as North Asia is a tough place to
do business, the person has said. The bank will
continue to do corporate finance and sponsor
business in North Asia, but support will be come
out of South-East Asia.
A CIMB spokesperson did not reply to an email
seeking comment. STANDARD CHARTERED has hired Anna Lui
as director on its Greater China debt capital
markets team.
Lui, based in Hong Kong, reports to David Yim,
head of DCM for Greater China.
Yim was also appointed interim head of capital
markets for Greater China and North Asia earlier
this year on the retirement of Tee Choon Hong.
Lui joins from ING Bank, where she spent the
last 18 months as head of DCM for Hong Kong.
She has also been with Jefferies and Royal Bank
of Scotland.
DCM has been one of the bright spots for
investment banking in Asia this year. Fees from
G3 bond issues in Asia Pacific ex-Japan almost
doubled in the first three quarters of the year,
rising to US$1.74bn from US$892m in the same
period last, according to Thomson Reuters data.Banks have been adding staff selectively in this
area, particularly in Greater China as mainland
corporations have been dominating issuance.
Earlier this month, rival Australia and New
Zealand Banking Group reshuffled its debt
team, promoting KJ Kim to head of Asia
DCM and hiring Baoshu Huang from CCB
International as head of North Asia DCM. Anthony Wong, formerly head of JP MORGAN’s
institutional bank sales desk in Hong Kong,
has launched a cryptocurrency hedge fund and
blockchain advisory firm.
The Hong Kong-based firm, called ORICHAL
PARTNERS, provides both active and passive
investment strategies in cryptocurrencies and
consulting for companies using blockchain.
Wong, who was with JP Morgan for more than
10 years, launched the company with Adrian Lai,
previously an associate at BlackRock, and Brian
Lee, formerly with China Development Bank and
Hubei-based brokerage Changjiang Securities.
Orichal Partners markets itself as the “first
multi-strategy cryptocurrency investment and
blockchain advisory firm in Asia”.
According to data fintech research firm
Autonomous NEXT published, the number of
cryptocurrency funds in October hit 110, 84 of
which were launched this year.
Assets across the funds rose to US$2.2bn.
Cryptocurrencies have begun to attract the
attention of a number of Wall Street luminaries.
Former Goldman Sachs partner and hedge
fund manager Mike Novogratz is launching
a US$500m hedge fund to invest in
crytocurrencies, initial coin offerings and related
companies, according to media reports. Tish Ghosh and Andrew Pidgeon have both left
CREDIT SUISSE.
Ghosh was managing director and head of
equities delta one and systematic trading for
Asia Pacific at the Swiss bank, while Pidgeon
was a director in the delta one and derivatives
trading division.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Ghosh has
joined US-based hedge fund Millennium Capital
Management as a portfolio manager in Hong
Kong.
Pidgeon has become a trader at Hong Kong
hedge fund Segantii Capital Management,
which is focused on the Asian public equity
markets with former Credit Suisse MD Kurt
Ersoy as head.
Ghosh was with Credit Suisse for three and a
half years and, before that, was director and
head of equities systematic trading for APAC at
Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He also worked
at Barclays.
Pidgeon spent just over seven years at Credit
Suisse and was previously an equity derivatives
trader at Macquarie Group.0EOPLE
&-ARKETS