Deutsche Bank has hired Boon-Kee Tan from Goldman Sachs in Singapore to take leadership of its Southeast Asian corporate finance business.
Tan was previously a managing director at Goldman, where she covered financial institutions. In addition to her corporate finance role at Deutsche, she will also run FIG — a role that was previously held by Dhruv Shrikent, who left the bank at the end of March.
The hire is part of what Deutsche describes as a “ramp-up” in its corporate finance business, which comprises transaction banking, markets and investment banking. The message is that it has turned the corner in terms of headcount reduction.
“When you look at the corporate landscape across all areas, we see tremendous opportunity,” said Bhupinder Singh, regional head of corporate finance. “We're projecting a 20% per annum bottom-line improvement for Deutsche Bank in Asia through 2015. It’s unlikely you can find that level of growth in other regions in the world.”
According to Singh, there will be around 225 Asian companies with revenues of more than $10 billion by 2015 — compared to 300 in the US and Europe.
Across corporate coverage and transaction banking, Deutsche has hired roughly 25 people during the past four months, as part of a strategy to leverage its commercial banking business to build a bigger corporate footprint across the region, broadening its existing relationships to take advantage of that projected growth in the size of the market.
However, there is also plenty of competition from established commercial banking rivals such as Citi, HSBC, and Standard Chartered, not to mention new competition from the big Japanese banks and ambitious entrants such as BNP Paribas.
Deutsche’s recent hires include the poaching of former J.P. Morgan investment banker Philip Lee as chief country officer for Singapore and vice-chairman for Southeast Asia, replacing Ronny Tan.
A month earlier, Sung Eun Ahn returned to Deutsche in Seoul after nine years as head of Korea investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, assuming the role of chief country officer and chief executive of the bank’s local securities arm. Singh said the bank is planning further hires in Korea.
