Barclays Capital has promoted Mike Di Iorio to head of equities for Asia-Pacific, less than a year after he joined the firm as head of equities trading for the same region, the UK bank said in a release yesterday.
He will replace Sigurbjörn “Siggi” Thorkelsson who was hired from Nomura in April 2010 to become head of equities for Asia-Pacific, which includes Japan and Australia, and has since also taken on the dual role as head of equities for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea). Di Iorio’s appointment will allow Thorkelsson to focus fully on his Emea role and a spokesman said he will be based in London from now on.
Di Iorio will continue to be based in Hong Kong and will report to Jerry Donini, the firm’s New York-based head of equities, as well as to Robert Morrice, who is chairman and chief executive for Asia-Pacific at Barclays PLC. In addition to his daily job of running the equities division, Di Iorio will also join the bank’s equities executive committee and its Asia-Pacific executive committee.
He joined Barclays Capital in August last year as part of the bank’s efforts to build an equities business in Asia. He too came from Nomura where he was co-head of equities trading for Asia-Pacific. He joined Lehman Brothers in March 2003 and transferred to Nomura when the Japanese bank bought Lehman’s Asian operations. Before becoming co-head of equities trading in Asia-Pacific, Di Iorio was head of flow derivatives trading at Lehman in London. During his more than 15-year career, he has also worked with Bank of America in Frankfurt and London as head of global exchange arbitrage for Europe.
Barclays’ equities business has been growing rapidly since the bank decided to make a serious push into this asset class in Asia to match its US presence, which it gained when it bought Lehman Brothers’ American operations at the end of 2008. Before that acquisition, equities at Barclays Capital involved mainly derivatives and equity-linked instruments.
In a comment on Di Iorio’s promotion, Morrice referred to the equities business as “a key part of [the bank’s] Asia-Pacific platform” and said Di Iorio’s proven business building skills and his global equities expertise position him well to lead the continued growth of this business.
