Macquarie Capital, the investment banking arm of the Macquarie group, has poached Anupam Garg from Singapore Technologies Telemedia (STT) to co-head telecommunications, media, entertainment and technology (TMET) investment banking for Asia.
Garg will continue to be based in Singapore and will co-head TMET together with Atin Kukreja. Kukreja has been with Macquarie since 2001, when he joined the Sydney-based firm from Bank of America. Kukreja is a senior managing director, the same level at which Garg joins.
In hiring Garg, Macquarie has appointed someone who brings on board a wealth of experience in the TMET sector, across both industry and banking.
He joins Macquarie from STT where he was senior vice president for international business development, responsible for the company’s global business initiatives, including mergers, acquisitions and partnerships. Garg has worked on transactions in practically all countries in Asia, as well as across the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the US. His role included identifying investment opportunities and managing the transaction process.
Prior to joining STT Garg worked at J.P. Morgan in various capacities. He left the US investment bank when he was a vice president in the TMT coverage group in Singapore. During his stint with J.P. Morgan Garg worked on a number of TMT deals for clients such as Temasek, Singapore Telecommunications, Chartered Semiconductor, Deutsche Telekom, Telstra, Saudi Aramco, Telenor, AIS, Khazanah, Telekom Malaysia and China Unicom.
Garg started his career with Mumbai-based investment bank ICICI Securities, which was then a joint venture between J.P. Morgan and ICICI Bank.
The hire is part of a series of senior appointments Macquarie has made in the TMET space. Tony Holt recently transferred from Macquarie's Sydney office to Hong Kong. Holt is global head of media for the investment bank and will work closely with Garg and Kukreja. In Europe, Bill Kennish joined Macquarie Capital from Citi in early August as a senior managing director and head of TMET in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
It is not surprising that Macquarie is strengthening its capabilities in the TMT space. Investment banks have been booking healthy revenues from the industry annually from M&A and related fund-raising activity. In India for example, this year a number of advisers have worked on deals related to the monetisation of telecommmunications towers by telecom firms. One of the largest cross-border M&A deals in Asia so far this year was Indian telecom operator Bharti Airtel's $10.7 billion acquisition of Africa's Zain Telecom, which also led to syndication and other financing-related business for the banks involved. And for the Macquarie Group, which has traditionally had a focus on infrastructure, TMT is a perfect fit.
