HSBC has appointed Andrew Maynard to head sales trading and execution services at its Asia-Pacific ex Japan equities business, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Maynard joined the UK bank from CLSA, where he was global head of trading and execution services, and replaces Jefferson Saunders who is on an internal transfer transition.
Before CLSA, Maynard spent 16 years at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he ran the US bank's regional execution services platform, according to a memo seen by FinanceAsia.
A Hong Kong-based HSBC spokesman confirmed Maynard's appointment on Monday but declined to comment on Saunders's next move within the company.
Maynard's appointment took effect last week. He is based in Hong Kong and will report to Rakesh Patel, co-head of equities for the Asia-Pacific region.
“The appointment of Maynard is an important piece of our expansion to our existing execution platform as the bank provides comprehensive services to our key clients,” Rakesh Patel, co-head of equities for the Asia-Pacific region, told FinanceAsia.
After a wave of stock market selloffs, Patel said he was confident that the recent hires will help the bank to gain market share once investor appetite for risk recovers, given HSBC's broad base of product offerings.
“The ETF market faces the most serious level of redemptions from retail investors, while money-market products have seen inflows over the past few weeks, suggesting a risk-averse sentiment in the region," Patel said.
“The volume of CSI 300 Index futures dropped 90% on a week on week basis, implying that the massive selloffs in China’s stock markets have dampened risk appetite,” he added.
On a brighter note, Patel said stocks in the Hang Seng China Enterprise Index are trading at 7 times their projected 2016 earnings, their cheapest level since the 2008 market meltdown.
Three new reports
In addition to Maynard’s appointment, HSBC has hired three executives to join its regional equities business. All of them will report to Maynard.
Based in Hong Kong, Christopher White joined HSBC in March as head of programme trading and single-stock execution. He joined from Deutsche Bank in Singapore, where he was responsible for German lender’s institutional program sales and trading business.
Jonathan Green, who is also based in Hong Kong, joined HSBC in August as head of electronic sales trading for the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to HSBC, he worked more than six years with Barclays in Hong Kong and had a year with Goldman Sachs in Tokyo.
Judy Low is based in Singapore as HSBC's head of Asean sales trading, having spent nine years at Deutsche Bank in a similar role.
