Credit Suisse First Boston has appointed J Marshall Nicholson to head up Asian equity capital markets replacing Nick Andrews, who left in April to run Asian ECM at JPMorgan.
Nicholson hails from JPMorgan in New York where he has spent the past two-and-a-half years building up the bank's equity-linked operations in the US. By the time he left in February, the team had risen from one (himself) to well over 20-strong. Prior to JPM, Nicholson spent nearly eight years at Merrill Lynch, also in the US, but covering a much wider equities beat.
He says he is relishing the challenge of his first overseas posting and will arrive in Hong Kong next week after spending two weeks acclimatising with the firm in New York and London.
"I'm really excited about the opportunity to be associated with Asia and CSFB," he comments. "It's clearly been a challenging market for the last couple of years, but a number of countries are starting to come back quite strongly and China is obviously going to be a huge market for capital going forwards.
"I've also been very impressed with CSFB," he adds. "It has a number of very good relationships in the region on the banking front and its research is highly ranked with both institutional and corporate buyers."
Nicholson will be joining one of Asia's smaller but more successful ECM teams. As of the July 13, the firm stood third in the league table rankings for equity issuance (ex Japan and Australia) on an equal credit share basis. While Goldman ranked first with $3.47 billion and Salomon second with $1.538 billion, CSFB was third with $887 million and JPMorgan fourth with $814 million. Splitting out equity-linked issuance, the firm has been even more successful coming second behind Goldman.
The current team has eight members including three directors, Adam Perrett, Julian Hall and Steve Metcalfe. And prior to his arrival, Nicholson may find it as necessary to brush up on his yachting technique as the nuances of Asian etiquette. For under the captaincy of Andrews, the three spent many a weekend with him cruising the backwaters of Hong Kong's New Territories. Always known for being an incredibly tight team, the ranks have, however, also recently been thinned by the departure of George Pavey, another dedicated boatie, who has re-located to CSFB in London.
Commenting on the new hire, Eric Varvel, head of Asian investment banking says, "Marshall represents the type of senior experienced banker CSFB has been bringing to the region. We took our time identifying the right person to run our equity capital markets business in non-Japan Asia. Marshall has the experience, expertise and team-oriented culture that will allow him to succeed with Asian clients and within our organization. I am thrilled to have him as my partner and a strong CSFB culture carrier within Asia."
Alongside Varvel, Nicholson will also report to Ernesto Cruz, head of global ECM.
A married father of two, Nicholson received his MS in engineering from Columbia University and MBA from the University of Virginia.
