Nomura has hired Raj Malhotra as its head of debt capital markets for Southeast Asia, according to an internal memo that was sent out on Monday.
Malhotra will be based in Singapore and will report to Clayton Carol, head of debt capital markets and debt syndicate, Asia ex-Japan, according to the memo, which was signed off by Daniel Mamadou and Djamal Attamimi, Asia ex-Japan heads of global finance and debt origination, respectively, as well as Carol.
Malhotra was most recently at UBS, where he was joint head of debt capital markets for Southeast Asia. He covered key banks, corporates and sovereigns in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia.
According to the memo, Malhotra “brings with him coverage relationships with some of Nomura’s key clients in the region and a long history of debt capital markets and credit experience from his tenures at UBS and Goldman Sachs in Singapore and London”.
The position is a newly created one for the Japanese bank and follows soon after rival bank J.P. Morgan said it plans to increase its focus on Southeast Asia. The US bank appointed Simon Page as head of Southeast Asia debt capital markets in October, in addition to his role as co-head of high-yield for Asia ex-Japan, and said at the time that it planned to make “additional resource commitments” to the new team.
Malhotra left UBS around September, shortly before the bank announced its retreat from the fixed-income business in October. It shut down its sovereign and supranational debt origination desk in Europe and the US, and has cut back on proprietary positions, long-dated swaps and collateralised debt obligations.
Insiders to the bank claim that it is business as usual for its debt capital markets team in Asia. However, rivals on the street say that it will have a scaled back fixed-income presence in the region. The bank has also seen departures from senior debt bankers. Its head of debt capital markets for Asia, Guy Wylie, left in June this year and was not replaced. Earlier in the year, Fergus Edwards, UBS’s global head of emerging markets syndicate also left the bank.
