Bank of America Merrill Lynch has poached veteran banker Matthew Koder from UBS to head its corporate and investment banking business in Asia. Koder submitted his resignation on Friday in London and is expected to return to Hong Kong and start at BoA Merrill by the end of June or early July.
Koder, who has nearly two decades of banking experience, is well known in Hong Kong as a rainmaker who gets deals done during tough times. (See a 2003 interview Jackie Horne did with him about his outlook for Asian equities after Sars.). He knows Asia, having handled Hong Kong IPOs for Bank of China and Standard Chartered Bank, convertibles for China Development Financial Holdings and Cathay Life in Taiwan and depositary receipts for Kookmin and KorAm banks in Korea.
Wooing him back to Asia is indisputably a coup on BoA Merrill’s part. Credit likely goes to Tom Montag, president of BoA Merrill’s global banking and markets, as the two worked together during their days at Goldman Sachs.
“The Asia-Pacific region continues to be one of the most compelling growth opportunities for our business. Matthew’s appointment will strengthen our ability to deliver best-in-class solutions to clients and accelerate our growth in this critical region,” said Montag.
“With his extensive client relationships and experience completing landmark transactions in the world’s most important financial markets, Matthew brings a unique, global perspective to our business and our clients. We are thrilled to have a leader of his calibre joining our management team in the region,” added Brian Brille, who is president of Asia-Pacific.
Getting the CIB house in order
BoA Merrill has been rebuilding its investment banking business since its merger. Jayanti Bajpai and Jiro Seguchi became jointly responsible for corporate and investment banking in the Asia-Pacific region in March 2009 – this after several high-level changes in upper management at the bank here in Asia. At the time, I described it as “a game of musical chairs underway at Merrill Lynch”.
But, finally, when Bajpai and Seguchi came on board (they remain in their roles as co-heads of Asia-Pacific investment banking), onlookers started to see some settling in at BoA Merrill. Bajpai focused on Asia-Pacific (ex-Japan) corporate and investment banking, while Seguchi looked after investment banking in Japan. Then, in March last year, BoA Merrill lured Charles Alexander to head corporate banking coverage for Asia-Pacific, just two years after he joined Standard Chartered. At the time, Brille referred to Alexander as a significant hire, considering Alexander’s background in Asia.
Before he joined Standard Chartered, Alexander spent a decade at Lehman Brothers. He was head of Asia corporate finance at Lehman when he jumped ship. Alexander joined Lehman in 1998 in Europe and moved with the firm to Hong Kong in October 2004.
As a result of these big hitters at the top, BoA Merrill showed up on some key deals, such as advising KNOC on its $2.8 billion acquisition of Dana petroleum, lead managing Reliance Holding’s $1.5 billion dual-tranche bond and acting as a bookrunner on AIA Group’s $20.5 billion IPO.
Add Koder to the team and you have more firepower. As one BoA Merrill banker put it: “We’ve been under-resourced in the region. The opportunities are huge, but we’ve needed to bring in some more grown-ups, if you will.”
Koder and Alexander are billed as just that – but now it will be down to the grown-ups to bring in more grown up-size deals, and as the insider put it, “take the business to another level”.
Of course, BoA Merrill isn’t alone in trying to get the corporate and investment banking story right. J.P. Morgan announced in mid-February that Muhammad Aurangzeb had joined as chief executive officer of its global corporate bank in Asia.
At the time of the announcement, Gaby Abdelnour, chairman and chief executive officer of J.P. Morgan Asia-Pacific, said: “We see tremendous potential for expanding our corporate banking business in Asia, where the economic growth rates exceed most parts of the world.” Abdelnour is clearly not alone.
Given the size of deals coming out of the region, the liquidity and the state of the rest of the world, Asia is the place to get right. Now.
