Credit Suisse hires eight for China fixed-income business

Credit Suisse continues to bolster its fixed-income man power and yesterday announced it has hired eight people within fixed-income sales and trading in China, including four from Deutsche Bank. A spokesperson at Credit Suisse confirmed that all these roles are new and are part of the bank's expansion of its Shanghai operations.

The hires include Keung Li, who will join as head of fixed-income sales. Li, who has more than 20 years' experience in banking, moves across from Deutsche Bank, where he has been head of onshore fixed-income sales for the China offices for the past two years. Li will report to George Chow, who is head of fixed-income sales for Greater China and based in Hong Kong.

Another three hires from Deutsche include Teng Ma, who will become head of financial institution sales, Antony Xing, who will be responsible for foreign exchange sales to financial institutions and corporates, and Feng Zhao, who will be responsible for trading long-dated onshore forwards and rates. Zhao will report to Howard Koh, the Hong Kong-based head of emerging markets trading for Greater China, while the Shanghai sales team will report to Li.

Angela Wen joins from ANZ to head corporate foreign exchange sales. The fixed-income sales team has also added Leo Chen, a vice-president, and Amanda Yan, an analyst.

On the trade side, Dong Jin, also a hire from ANZ, shall be responsible for trading short-dated onshore foreign exchange, forwards and rates.

In January, when it hired Bunt Ghosh and Atsushi Mizuno as vice-chairmen for fixed-income Asia, Credit Suisse announced that it would be looking to expand its fixed-income headcount in Asia by more than 20% this year. Following on from this, the bank has made nine senior appointments within the ranks of fixed-income.

The Swiss bank is said to now be in the final implementation stages of this expansion, which has focused both on its local business presence, such as the new hires in Shanghai, and on boosting its key hubs in Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong.

"Our China onshore business represents one of the biggest growth opportunities along our route to becoming a dominant emerging markets franchise in Asia," Carsten Stoehr, head of fixed-income for Asia-Pacific, said in a press release. 

Currently, the fixed-income business in China is focused on rates, foreign exchange, and commodities hedging needs of the bank's local clients.

In 2004, Credit Suisse's Shanghai branch received approval from the China Banking Regulatory Commission to deal in derivatives. In January 2010, it was admitted to the Shanghai Gold Exchange, making it only one of five foreign banks to be able to trade gold, silver and platinum in China.