Moelis & Company, the independent investment bank, has appointed Zhang Xiuping as a managing director and head of Asia M&A, a newly created position at the bank.
Zhang, who joined the firm on Friday, is based in Hong Kong and is responsible for deal origination and providing strategic advice to regional and global clients, with a focus on cross-border M&A into and out of China. She will work in close co-operation with the Moelis Beijing office.
She previously worked for Bank of America Merrill Lynch and was appointed co-head of M&A for Asia in 2010, a position she shared with Michael Cho, who left the bank in January 2012. Stephen Gore has been leading BofA Merrill's M&A efforts in the region since he joined from UBS in August 2012, as head of M&A for Asia ex-Japan
Prior to BofA Merrill, Zhang was a managing director and head of China M&A at Deutsche Bank. She started her banking career with JP Morgan in New York in 1997.
Zhang has more than 15 years of investment banking experience and has advised Asian, European and American clients on cross-border M&A transactions. In the past two years, she led teams that executed many of the take-private deals for US-listed Chinese companies.
Moelis acquired Asia Pacific Advisers, a financial advisory firm founded by former ABN Amro and Royal Bank of Scotland banker Richard Orders in 2011. It has a strategic alliance with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and SMBC Nikko Securities in Japan.
