Barclays makes investment banking hires

Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of UK-based Barclays Bank, has poached two senior bankers from Morgan Stanley to head up its Greater China investment banking business, according to sources.

Peter Ding, who was named co-head of mergers and acquisitions for Asia-Pacific ex-Japan at Morgan Stanley only a month ago, will join his former boss Ed King who is also expected to start at Barclays after leaving Morgan Stanley in early June. Ding and Samuel Kim were appointed co-heads of M&A to replace King when he left.

Barclays has also hired Gary Kuo, Morgan Stanley's country head for Taiwan and head of Taiwan investment banking, who has been with the US firm since 2001 and is well regarded within the investment banking community in Taiwan for his work on high-profile M&A and capital markets deals.

Ding and Kuo will share the title of co-head of investment banking for Greater China and are expected to take up their positions after the customary three months of gardening leave. It was unclear where they will be based.

The hires, both of Ding and Kuo and of King a month ago, come as Barclays continues to build its investment banking and equity capital markets franchise, which is something it started to focus on only a couple of years ago. Barclays' head of investment banking, Matthew Ginsburg, has a long background with Morgan Stanley, which he left for Barclays in June last year, and it is quite natural that he turns to his old firm for talent as he builds his team.

However, Ginsburg's aggressive hiring since he came on board in September has included people from a range of rival firms. Indeed, Barclays announced yesterday that it has hired Vanessa Koo from Goldman Sachs as a managing director in M&A focusing on Greater China, and James Lim from BNP Paribas as a managing director and head of real estate for Asia-Pacific.

Barclays didn't confirm the reports that it has also hired Ding and Kuo, but the firm has a policy of only commenting on new hires when they actually join.

Koo has more than a decade of experience and according to the release has worked on a variety of high-profile M&A transactions in the region, including ING's sale of its Asia equities platform to Macquarie and China Resources' sale of its stake in Esprit China. At Goldman she was most recently head of M&A for China. She joined the US bank in New York in 1998 and moved to Hong Kong in 2000.

Lim will be responsible for investment banking coverage in the real estate sector across all products and countries in Asia-Pacific. He was most recently head of real estate investment banking at BNP and previously also held a similar position with Lehman Brothers. He has worked on transactions such as the IPO of casino operator Sands China in Hong Kong, the listing of property developer DLF in India and the rights issue for K-Reit in Singapore.

While Barclays has still to show its hand in equity capital markets, where it is currently building a pipeline of mandates, it has begun to make its mark in M&A, which it started to focus on in earnest in mid-2008 when it hired Jason Rynbeck from ABN AMRO as head of advisory for Asia-Pacific. Rynbeck brought along a team of senior M&A bankers. Barclays is fifth in the Dealogic league table for announced M&A in Asia ex-Japan this year with nine deals, and fourth in the table for completed transactions. Last year in didn't feature in the top 10 in either table.

Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley has prided itself on having had the same management team in place in Taiwan since 2001 -- a streak that will be broken with Kuo's resignation. A bank spokesperson said Wallace Ko will take on the role as acting country head for Taiwan in addition to his duties as head of the Taiwan institutional equity division.

Ding has been with Morgan Stanley since June 2008 when he joined from UBS as a managing director focusing on M&A. His departure, which was confirmed by Morgan Stanley, means that Samuel Kim will now become sole head of M&A for Asia-Pacific ex-Japan.