UBS has named Saurabh Beniwal and Joseph Chee as co-heads of its investment banking division in Asia, according to an internal memo seen by FinanceAsia.
They will report to Matthew Hanning, who was named head of investment banking across the Asia Pacific region in May last year. The reshuffle was prompted by the departure of David Chin after 21 years at the bank.
UBS also named Lauro Baja and Guorong Jiang as vice chairmen of IB Asia in the memo, which was signed by Hanning and sent to staff late Monday.
UBS’s investment banking advisory business is known as corporate client solutions (CCS), which encompasses capital markets and advisory. It is separate from the bank's secondary markets trading businesses.
Beniwal has worked for UBS since 2000, most recently in CCS for South East Asia. Before that he worked in the bank's technology, media and telecoms group and the Asian power, utilities and infrastructure investment banking group.
Chee joined the corporate finance group of UBS in 2000 and was appointed head of Taiwan ECM in 2003. He was then appointed head of China ECM in 2005, and has since helped build the Swiss bank’s business in the mainland. In 2006, he moved to Beijing to help set up its domestic securities joint venture, UBS Securities, one of the more successful partnerships among foreign firms in China.
Chee has been involved in many of UBS's landmark ECM transactions involving China, including the Hong Kong IPOs for Bank of China and China Merchants Bank in 2006, Petrochina's A-share IPO in 2007, and the A- and H-share listings of China Pacific Insurance, in 2007 and 2009, respectively.
He has held a number of senior roles including: head of global capital markets and deputy head of investment banking for UBS Securities; head of China global capital markets and vice chairman of China, UBS. Most recently, Chee was sole head of global capital markets, Asia.
UBS also named Lauro Baja and Guorong Jiang as vice chairmen of CCS Asia. Jiang will retain his title as head of China CCS and Lauro will continue as country head and head of Philippines CCS.
Baja joined UBS in New York in 1995, where he had coverage responsibility for Latin America.
He was appointed head of the Philippines investment banking business in 2002, later also becoming country head. He will now also assume responsibility for a group of select clients with interests across the region and globally, many of which he enjoys a strong existing relationship with due to their Philippine interests.
Jiang joined UBS in late 2014 from CICC, where he was the executive chair of investment banking committee and co-head of its investment banking division. He worked with the IMF from 1995 to 2003 and was a member of the listing committee of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing from 2009 to 2014.
