Investment banker Sindy Wan has left Goldman Sachs, a spokesman for the US bank confirmed on Tuesday.
Wan, a managing director focused on the Asian consumer and retail industries, was based in Hong Kong and had been with Goldman Sachs for 13 years, according to her Linkedin profile.
She could not be immediately reached for comment. The spokesman for Goldman Sachs also declined to comment further.
Goldman Sachs has been cutting its head count on the investment banking side but those job losses had previously been centred on Southeast Asia, where its deal flow has lagged.
Bhagobati, who joined the bank in 2007, was a managing director and relocated to Singapore in 2013 from Australia, where he was previously co-head of mergers and acquisitions.
Hsin Yue Yong, Goldman Sachs’s erstwhile head of investment banking for Southeast Asia, also left the firm in February to pursue other opportunities, according to an internal memo seen by FinanceAsia. Yong had been with Goldman Sachs for 18 years.
Slower deal-flow
Investment banking in Asia has been off to a tepid start, with equity capital markets deal-flow in the region slowing. According to Dealogic data, investment banking revenue for Asia ex Japan so far this year stands at $1.3 billion compared with $1.6 billion in the same period last year.
The big global banks are also grappling with a higher cost of capital and greater regulation.
As a result many banks are struggling to right-size their head count in the region, having overbuilt in 2010. In January, Standard Chartered shut down its loss-making global equities business while CLSA shed more than 20 people from its equities unit. Meanwhile, the Royal Bank of Scotland is retreating from corporate banking in Asia.
Goldman Sachs advised Hutchison Whampoa last year on the sale of a 24.9% stake in beauty retailer AS Watson to Temasek Holdings.
(With additional reporting by Alison Tudor-Ackroyd)
This article has been corrected to reflect that Wan was not the Asia consumer/retail investment banking head as previously reported.
