Barclays has appointed Jack Yee as head of blocks origination for Asia-Pacific, effective immediately.
Based in Hong Kong, Yee will report to Jorge Munoz, head of ECM Asia-Pacific, according to an internal memo seen by FinanceAsia.
He was previously head of equity syndicate for Asia-Pacific, a position he held since joining the bank in 2011 from Nomura, where he was head of equity syndicate for Asia ex-Japan.
In his new role, Yee will shift from Barclays’s equity syndicate unit to the investment banking division, the memo said.
Daniel Wosner will take over Yee’s role as head of equity syndicate for Asia Pacific, and is now responsible for leading and overseeing marketing, distribution, pricing and allocation of ECM transactions across the region. Wosner reports to Joe Castle, head of equity syndicate.
Wosner (pictured left) was previously a director on the APAC syndicate team. He joined Barclay’s equity syndicate team in London in 2008 before relocating to Hong Kong in 2011. Before, he held a variety of ECM and equity syndicate roles at Lehman Brothers.
Turbulent times
These promotions come nearly one year after Barclays announced large job cuts and senior departures. Last May, Barclays confirmed it would cut 7,000 investment banking jobs by 2016 and create a bad bank of unwanted assets, including non-core commodities.
Jason Rynbeck, Barclay’s vice-chairman of mergers and acquisitions for Asia Pacific, left the bank soon after the announcement in May. He joined HSBC as head of M&A in August.
It’s generally been a tumultuous time for equities businesses in Asia. Standard Chartered is dropping its loss-making global equities businesses, marking an end to its expensive five-year expansion that struggled to take off in competitive Asian markets.
The UK bank is not alone — a number of other mid-sized brokers that sought to build out Asian equities platforms have since pulled back after failing to achieve scale.
Samsung Securities shut its Asian equities business in February 2012, while Japan brokers Nomura, Daiwa and Mitsubishi UFJ Securities all scaled back in the region in 2011 and 2012.
