J.P. Morgan has hired Citi‘s Jing Zhao to head up its financial institutions group (FIG) for emerging Asia, according to an internal announcement yesterday. Emerging Asia is J.P. Morgan’s name for Asia ex-Japan, which means Zhao will take over part of Olivier de Grivel’s former job. De Grivel was head of FIG for Asia-Pacific before he retired from the firm earlier this year.
J.P. Morgan will no longer have someone to oversee FIG for the entire region, but the division is now part of the responsibilities of the two co-heads of investment banking. FIG was not part of investment banking before the firm introduced the co-head structure during the fourth quarter last year.
The FIG business in Australia is headed by Andrew Best, while FIG in Tokyo is led by Katsuyuki Kuki, the firm’s co-head of investment banking for Japan.
Zhao joined Citi in 2006 and was most recently co-head of FIG for Asia ex-Japan as well as chairman of China global investment banking. Titles aside though, she was essentially Citi’s head of FIG for China, while fellow co-head Simon Yoo was responsible for the rest of the Asia-Pacific region.
According to sources, she resigned from Citi a couple of weeks ago and is currently on gardening leave. She is expected to join J.P. Morgan sometime in July.
In her new job, she will work closely with her colleagues in the bank’s global and regional product groups to provide FIG clients with “innovative strategic ideas and effective market solutions,” the announcement said. She was described as having “deep industry experience”.
Citi has not been one of the most prominent banks with regard to China FIG in recent years, however. It did not have a role on the IPOs for either Agricultural Bank of China, China Pacific Insurance (CPIC) or New China Life Insurance, which are three of the sector’s biggest deals in recent years, though it was a joint global coordinator on Haitong Securities’ $1.67 billion Hong Kong IPO in April this year, as was J.P. Morgan.
Zhao will be based in Hong Kong and will report to Todd Marin and Therese Esperdy, the bank’s co-heads of investment banking for Asia-Pacific. Esperdy, who was previously head of global debt capital markets, transferred to Asia to take up this joint role in October last year. Prior to her arrival, Marin was the sole head of investment banking in the region.
Before joining Citi, Zhao spent more than a decade at Morgan Stanley where she held various investment banking roles in New York, Hong Kong and Beijing with a strong focus on FIG clients.
