Siong Ooi has joined Bank of America Merrill Lynch as head of Asia-Pacific loan syndication.
He joins as a managing director, based in Hong Kong, and will report to Ashish Malhotra, head of Asia-Pacific debt syndication, said BoA Merrill in a written memo signed by Paul Richards, head of international debt capital markets and debt syndicate, and Malhotra.
Responsibility for syndicating all loan products across the region lies with Ooi. He will work closely with corporate and investment banking, capital markets and global markets, said BoA Merrill in the memo.
Ooi joins BoA Merrill from ANZ in Hong Kong where he has spent the past 11 years. His last position at ANZ was as head of global markets for Hong Kong. Earlier, he spent 10 years in various roles in loan origination and syndication across Sydney, Singapore and Hong Kong, with responsibility for arranging, underwriting, pricing and distributing loans for clients based in Asia across corporate, project, structured and acquisition financing.
Hiring Ooi fits with BoA Merrill's strategy of integrating its corporate and investment bank — his reporting line is to Malhotra but he is responsible for a corporate bank product. The goal of this integration is to allow BoAMerill to use its ability to syndicate and arrange loans to drive client business for different parts of the bank. This is a model Standard Chartered has been successfully adopting.
