Barclays has promoted internally to fill several senior positions left vacant in Asia after a spate of recent departures.
With immediate effect, Lars Aagaard and Dirk Simmons have been made co-heads of the UK bank's newly combined industrials, power & utilities group for Asia Pacific, a source familiar with the matter told FinanceAsia on Wednesday.
Aagaard joined Barclays in 2010 from Morgan Stanley and will move to Hong Kong from Australia to take up the new role.
In addition, Paul Early has been named head of natural resources for Asia Pacific, replacing Marc Benton, Barclays' former head of oil and gas investment banking, who left in May. Early was previously the bank's head of Asia-Pacific metals and mining.
Sander Hamersma, previously head of communications and media at Barclays, is now head of technology, media, and telecoms for Asia Pacific, while Rafael Carrillo and Akihiro Kanaya have been named regional co-heads of the bank's financial institutions group. Carrillo was previously head of FIG for Southeast Asia and Kanaya was previously head of FIG for Japan.
Elsewhere, Sheng Wu has been named head of investment banking division for Greater China while Vanessa Koo has been named head of Asia-Pacific mergers and acquisitions, replacing Edward King, who moved to the US to take on a new role as executive chairman of global M&A earlier this year.
The new appointments all report to Andy Jones, Barclays' interim head of investment banking in Asia, and come in the wake of several high profile departures.
In May, Matthew Ginsburg stepped down from his role as regional head of investment banking to take a position within the firm outside of the region. Shortly after that, Johan Leven, Barclays' Asia-Pacific head of corporate finance, left the firm, as did Helge Weiner-Trapness, head of the bank's Asia-Pacific FIG.
Barclays is cutting back its workforce within its investment bank, with plans to cut 100 jobs within investment banking and markets in the Asia Pacific region. The bank has seen a raft of changes since Robert Morrice, chairman and CEO of Barclays Asia-Pacific, announced his retirement in early May. Morrice will leave the bank at the end of June, to be replaced by Jones and Eiji Nakai, who are earmarked to become co-CEOs.
