RBS expands Asia DCM team

RBS has promoted David So to director within its Asia debt capital markets team, as the British bank bids to revive its fixed-income profile in the region.

So relocated from Australia to Singapore on April 1, according to an internal memo. He was based in Sydney before the move, where he was a vice-president for structured capital markets, according to his LinkedIn profile.

In the new role he will be responsible for the origination and execution of primary market deals in Singapore, said the memo.

He will report locally to Alan Roch, head of Asia-Pacific bond syndicate, and regionally to Mumbai-based Manmohan Singh, head of debt capital markets for India and Southeast Asia.

So’s move comes on the back of several hires announced in January when the bank appointed Winston Tay as director and head of bond syndicate for Southeast Asia based in Singapore and Xiao Xiao Sun as director of debt capital markets for Asia based in Beijing.

RBS is strengthening its Asian fixed-income team after several senior bankers quit last year, including Hong Kong-based Augusto King, Asia head of DCM, who helped establish the bank’s debt franchise in the region, and Rogerio Bernardo, previously a Singapore-based director on the syndicate team, who resigned from the bank after 16 years.

The new appointments, while they reaffirm RBS’s commitment to boosting its DCM business in Asia, come at a time when the bank is facing challenges at home. On Thursday, the state-owned bank announced that it is closing 44 branches across the UK, despite a 2010 pledge to maintain its branch presence.

The branch closures come two months after RBS said it planned to slash costs by more than £5 billion ($8.3 billion) over four years, after its annual results showed a loss of £8.2 billion during 2013.

So spent nine years at RBS in Australia, working across the fixed income, debt capital markets and securitisation teams. He has significant experience in arranging unsecured and secured funding solutions for Australia and New Zealand financial institutions.