Morgan Stanley names Aronovitch co-head of IB for Southeast Asia

David Aronovitch has been appointed co-head of investment banking for Southeast Asia at Morgan Stanley, filling the vacancy left by Arthur Lang who is joining CapitaLand as group chief financial officer. FinanceAsia reported Lang’s departure last week.

Aronovitch joined Morgan Stanley as an analyst in New York in 1998 and transferred to Asia in 2006. He is currently head of the bank’s Asia-Pacific consumer and retail investment banking group — a job that he will retain alongside his new role. However, he will relocate from Hong Kong to Singapore as he will focus more of his time on Southeast Asia. He will share the position with fellow co-head Eric Ma, who was appointed together with Lang in March 2010. Ma is based in Thailand.

As head of the consumer and retail group, Aronovitch has been involved in a number of key Asian deals, most recently Samsonite’s $1.25 billion Hong Kong IPO. In Southeast Asia, he worked on Thai retail and property conglomerate Central Group’s $369 million acquisition of Italian retailer Rinascente last month; on Thai Union Frozen Products’ $884 million acquisition of canned tuna producer MW Brands last year; and Singapore-based Asia Pacific Breweries’ purchase of Multi-Bintag Indonesia and New Caledonia for $600 million in 2009.

The consumer and retail group was previously part of Morgan Stanley’s general industries group (GIG), which has since been broken up into different sector groups. Aronovitch joined the GIG team when he moved to Asia. Before that he held various investment banking positions across global capital markets, corporate finance and M&A, both in New York and London.

Lang had worked with Morgan Stanley’s investment banking division for 15 years, focusing mainly on Singapore. However, in 2007 and 2008 he spent two years in Hong Kong as the bank’s chief operating officer for investment banking for Asia-Pacific ex-Japan. At CapitaLand, Singapore’s largest real estate developer, he will replace Olivier Lim, who has been CFO since July 2005 and will now become head of strategic corporate development. Lang will start his new job in mid-September after three months of gardening leave.