The Singapore Exchange (SGX) has appointed Michael Luk as head of fixed income origination and sales, according to a statement on Monday, as the bourse looks to strengthen its market position in the fixed income business.
Veteran banker Luk will be bringing with him 18 years of experience in the fixed income capital markets, having held senior positions in major investment banks in the region.
Before joining SGX, Luk was global head of debt capital markets with ANZ in Hong Kong. But he has held senior jobs at several banks. He was previously Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s head of Asia-Pacific DCM and before that was Deutsche Bank’s head of fixed income capital markets and head of Asia leveraged DCM.
Luk is leaving ANZ shortly after the Australian bank restructured the capital markets division and promoted Jimmy Choi and Paul White as co-heads of the team.
In his newly-created role with SGX, Luk will be responsible for spearheading the growth of the exchange’s fixed income businesses and establishing deeper and broader relationships with market participants, according to the statement.
The appointment will be effective Jan 1. Luk will report to Chew Sutat, SGX’s head of equities and fixed income.
SGX, home of over 1,900 debt securities from more than 30 countries, has launched new initiatives in recent years in a bid to solidify its position as one of Asia’s leading bond trading marketplaces.
Last year, it started a new program that allows retail investors to invest with a minimal investment of S$1,000 in certain bond products. Retail investors are not frequent buyers in the bond market since the bonds are mostly traded with large denominations of at least S$200,000 each.
In August last year, SGX introduced a program on its website that provides independent evaluations of debt securities to public investors, offering them pricing information of these securities that are mostly traded on the over-the-counter (OTC) market.
