After eight-and-a-half years in Asia and an extended summer holiday, West will return to London in September for an as yet undisclosed senior position within European ECM.
His successor will be Matthew Koder, who joins the Swiss bank from Goldman Sachs, where he has spent the whole of the last decade since university. Long considered a rising star at Goldman, Koder was prized within Asian ECM for his execution abilities. But the move is viewed an opportune one for him, as he will be elevated from executive director to managing director status and given the opportunity to run his own team for the first time.
Both Goldman and UBSW have similarly sized teams of 10 to 12, but are structured very differently. For example, while the former has a very small number of highly experienced ECM bankers supported by a large pool of associates, the latter has a small top and a much wider middle.
Therefore at Goldman, Koder leaves behind co-heads Mark Machin and the invigorating John Daly, plus Jeffrey Kolitch, who was promoted to MD status towards the end of last year.
At UBSW, he joins Rex Chung, the bank's Korea specialist, who also ranks as MD and at the ED level: syndicate head Marcus Brown; convertibles head Simon Ollerenshaw and Chris Hung, who covers Greater China. Below them at the next level are UBSW's own rising star Ganen Sarvananthan, who runs South East Asia from Singapore, plus Fion Chow who covers convertibles and Hong Kong, and Mark Williams.
West's departure has been expected for some time, but his colleagues say they are still very sad to see the "silver fox" go since he is renowned for his courteous, considerate and conscientious manner. Accompanied by his wife and four daughters, he currently plans to spend the early part of the summer exploring Indochina before retreating to his favourite country France and great love of Bordeaux reds.
Like a large number of his colleagues in Asia, West has been with the bank for many years (16) and hails from the UBS side of the business. He moved to Singapore in 1994 to run investment banking in the Lion City before taking over from Peter Burnett in 2000 after the latter went on a short "walkabout" before becoming co-head of Asian investment banking.
From his base in Singapore, he has since been credited with building one of the most consistently successful ECM teams in the region. He says he believes the bank's successful completion of SingPost last week is a fitting finale to his time in Asia and also numbers Korea Telecom's ADR and Bank of China's IPO as two of his most rewarding deals. This last deal was also where UBSW cemented its relationship with Koder who covered FIG ECM at Goldman and worked on a number of privatizations such as the MTRC and Tracker Fund.
"I'm delighted we've been able to attract Matthew and have a huge regard for him," West comments. "We already know him very well, having worked with him on a number of different deals in recent years."
Koder helped execute a string of deals during his three years in Asian ECM. Last year these included Hong Kong IPOs for Bank of China and Standard Chartered Bank, convertibles for China Development Financial Holdings and Cathay Life in Taiwan and DRs for Kookmin and KorAm banks in Korea.
Prior to being based in Hong Kong, he spent 10 years alternating between posts in his native Australia and New York.
