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Credit Suisse has strengthened the management of its global markets solutions group (GMSG) in Asia-Pacific through the appointment of three co-heads, including George Pavey who is returning to Hong Kong after close to four years with the Swiss bank in Dubai.
He will share the role with Mervyn Chow, who was previously co-head of equity capital markets for non-Japan Asia together with Zeth Hung, and with Carl Bautista, who has been responsible for the bank’s fixed-income structured products business within GMSG since he re-joined Credit Suisse in January 2010. The appointments are effective immediately.
GMSG includes equity and debt capital markets as well as structured products and the three co-heads will jointly be responsible for growing these businesses in the region, including Australia and Japan. However, the trio will continue to focus on their respective specialities. Bautista will lead the structured products business, which includes client financing solutions within equity, fixed-income, convertible bonds, pre-IPO financing and structured loans, while Chow and Pavey will have joint responsibility for ECM and DCM origination and execution. The head of ECM job that Chow and Hung have shared for the past two years will disappear, although in practice Chow and Pavey will take on those responsibilities.
Chow and Pavey both have a background in ECM, but as noted by a source, many of the firm’s DCM clients are emerging market companies that have previously also done an initial public offering and perhaps a follow-on share sale. Also, Derek Armstrong retains his role as head of the debt financing group, and will effectively continue to be responsible for the day-to-day running of the DCM business.
The new structure will free up time for Vikram Malhotra and Helman Sitohang to focus on their job as co-heads of the investment banking department (IBD) for Asia-Pacific. Until now, they have been co-heads of GMSG as well.
Meanwhile, Hung will take on a new client coverage role as vice-chairman of the investment banking department and the global market solutions group for Greater China. The additional management of that business is needed, the source said, since the number of Credit Suisse’s clients in China and the number of bankers covering them has doubled since 2009. Hung will work closely with Janice Hu, who is chairman and head of the investment banking department for China.
Chow, Pavey and Hung are all based in Hong Kong, while Bautista is based in Singapore.
“Strengthening our GMSG and China coverage management teams makes perfect strategic sense at a time when Asian capital markets and Credit Suisse’s own business are growing rapidly,” Sitohang said in a written statement.
In the first half this year, Credit Suisse has been involved in several high-profile equity and debt deals, including Glencore’s $10 billion dual-listing in London and Hong Kong, Shanghai Pharmaceutical’s $2 billion Hong Kong IPO, a $2 billion high-yield bond for New Zealand-based Reynolds Group and an $87 million debut bond for Hoang Anh Gia Lai, which was the first-ever offshore corporate bond from a Vietnamese issuer.
The firm ranked seventh for Asia-Pacific ECM and third for Asia ex-Japan and ex-A-shares, according to Dealogic. It didn’t make the top-10 in Asia-Pacific DCM, but was third in the Asia-Pacific ex-Japan DCM revenue ranking with a 4.9% market share.
Chow and Hung both joined Credit Suisse in 1998 and were named co-heads of ECM in April 2009 when Malhotra was promoted to co-head of IBD. Chow has spent most of his time as an ECM banker, while Hung’s background includes stints as a member of the corporate finance and China teams, as well as the financial institutions group.
Before joining Credit Suisse, Chow and Hung both worked for BZW Asia, which Credit Suisse bought in 1998.
Pavey re-joined Credit Suisse in October 2007 from HSBC where he was head of ECM and co-head of global capital markets for Asia-Pacific for about two-and-a-half years. In that role, he laid the foundation for HSBC’s current ECM franchise by leveraging the bank’s strong lending relationships. He also focused on setting up a first-class distribution platform and on expanding the ECM business to South and Southeast Asia.
Before joining HSBC, Pavey spent seven years with Credit Suisse’s ECM teams in London, New York and Hong Kong. Until his recent transfer from Dubai to Hong Kong he was head of real estate ECM for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) as well as co-head of EMEA emerging markets ECM.
Bautista returned to Credit Suisse after a stint at running his own financial company in the US that was focused on trading equities and fixed income products. He first joined the Swiss bank in 1997 in Singapore as head of structuring for non-Japan Asia. In 2003 he relocated to the US, where he established and co-headed the energy trading and marketing group.
Prior to joining Credit Suisse he worked at Bankers Trust where he was involved in the structuring and sale of derivative products in both New York and Hong Kong.
