Bank of America Merrill Lynch has hired convertible bond specialist Achintya Mangla and one member of his team at J.P. Morgan, Aloke Gupte, as it builds its equity and equity-linked platform in the region. Mangla's resignation from J.P. Morgan and potential move to BoA Merrill was rumoured in the media earlier this week and was confirmed through an internal announcement at the firm yesterday.
Mangla will not focus solely on converts, but has been given a broader role as head of Southeast Asia equity capital markets and head of equity-linked solutions for Asia-Pacific ex-Japan. In this role, he will be responsible for leading the US bank's ECM efforts in Southeast Asia in addition to improving its market share in and revenues from equity-linked products, including corporate derivatives.
In effect, Mangla will take on some of the Southeast Asia responsibilities that Soofian Zuberi had before he was promoted to a new role as head of the firm's sales activities in the region in February 2009. Zuberi and Jason Cox were co-heads of Asia ECM and while they didn't formally divide the region between them, in practice, Zuberi's experience and background in Southeast Asia meant this was where he spent most of his time.
Despite the Southeast Asia focus, Mangla will be based in Hong Kong and will report to Cox, who is now the sole head of Asia ECM. He is expected to start in early August after three months of gardening leave.
Meanwhile, Aloke Gupte will follow his boss from J.P. Morgan and will take up the role as director and head of convertible bonds for Asia-Pacific ex-Japan. He too will be based in Hong Kong and will be part of the ECM team, which suggests that he will report to Cox.
The pair will leave a gaping hole in the equity-linked team at J.P. Morgan, especially with regard to CBs. Mangla had been head of the team since 2003 and, during the more than eight years that he has spent with J.P. Morgan in Hong Kong, he helped build the bank into one of the powerhouses within CB origination in the region. In fact, in the mid-2000s, J.P. Morgan was the undisputed leader in this asset class in the region and, between 2004 and 2007, the bank won FinanceAsia's Equity-linked House of the Year award three times.
So far this year, J.P. Morgan is second in the Dealogic equity-linked league table with three deals, one less than Credit Suisse which tops the rankings. BoA Merrill, on the other hand, has in recent years been increasingly focused on highly structured equity-linked transactions that have primarily been sold through private placements. The firm has arranged one CB transaction so far this year and in 2009 didn't make it into the top 10 in the Dealogic rankings.
Gupte has been a member of the equity-linked capital markets team in Hong Kong for the past two to three years after transferring from India. He joined J.P. Morgan in India five years ago, having started his career in investment banking at HSBC.
