Paris-headquartered bank, Société Générale (SocGen), announced earlier this month via media note the appointment of two regional co-heads to lead its Asia-based Asset Backed Products (ABP) division. Hong Kong-based Eugene Kim and Sydney-based Arkady Lippa share the leadership remit, replacing Florence Coeroli, who is also based in Hong Kong and was recently promoted to head of ABP for Europe and Asia Pacific (Apac). They both report into her globally, as well as Stephanie Clemant de Givry who leads the regional business. Additionally, Lippa reports to Pascal Sefrin, country head for Australia.
With the scope of the APB product offering comprising all forms of structured credit chains, the pair will work to support local and international financial institutions, sponsors, asset managers and corporates, on deal structures ranging from securitisation, to origination, trading, distribution and sales.
Kim shared with FinanceAsia his enthusiasm to work across as unique a region as Asia, with its varied market dynamics, regulatory frameworks, investor preferences and currencies.
“While some Asian markets, such as Australia, have a well-developed public securitisation market with residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) and asset-backed securities (ABS) deals distributed globally, activity in other securitisation markets, such as Korea, remains largely onshore with local investors supporting issuers.”
He said that the region constitutes a global centre for both emerging asset classes and innovative structures within the asset-backed space, and it plays an important role in the development of infrastructure ABS, for example.
“We see strong support for a range of asset classes from the US, Europe and Australia among Japanese investors and will continue efforts aimed at further development of investor appetite in Apac for securitisation and asset-backed products.”
Lippa agreed that both Australia’s mature RMBS and ABS spaces are witnessing an uptick in interest from investors based elsewhere in the region, alongside growing demand for US and European collateralised loan obligations (CLO).
“In terms of interest expressed by Apac-based clients for financing in structured format, we see growing demand for securitisation and fund financing solutions from a range of clients including global financial sponsors with large presences in the region, both from a fundraising and investment perspective.”
He added that private credit – a sector that has grown to $1.4 trillion in size from $500 million in 2015 and is expected to breach $2.7 trillion by 2027 – is also witnessing increased demand from Asia based investors. Similar to the case in other parts of the world, he said: “direct lender funds are developing their financing capacity [for offer] to companies in the region.”
Lippa joined the bank’s Australasian business in 2019, from National Australia Bank (NAB) where he led product and channel development for Corporate Finance. Prior to this, he served at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) and GE Capital.
Kim’s tenure at SocGen commenced in 2007 following stints at BNP Paribas and SMBC, and he has since worked in senior positions across origination and structuring at the bank’s bases in Hong Kong, Seoul and Paris. He has led large scale transactions including ESG format financing and fund and collateral deals.
A spokesperson for SocGen told FA, “[The bank] has deep expertise and experience across the ABP spectrum globally and we believe this can assist our global as well as local APAC clients in addressing their funding and capital needs.”
Recent accomplishments by the team include involvement as structuring advisor to BMW on the firm’s most recent public ABS issuance in Korea; its support of New Zealand’s green bank on its solar finance debt programme; and its service as joint sustainability coordinator on PAG’s latest private debt fund.
