Dermot Mayes, previously Nomura’s head of fixed-income syndicate for Asia-ex Japan, has left the bank. It is unclear where Mayes is headed, though market chatter suggests that he might be taking a break.
The Japanese bank is looking to fill the position and his responsibilities will be absorbed by other members in the team. However, his departure could start a round of musical chairs within the industry.
The hiring cycle has not exactly kicked off in a big way for debt capital markets teams, but with bonuses having been paid out, the grass on the other side of the fence could start looking an awful lot greener.
Barclays Capital has hired Avinash Thakur as a director of debt capital markets in Asia. Avinash will be responsible for debt origination. He was previously a director, capital markets, Asia origination at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and, prior to that, a director and head of Southeast and South Asia, Asia debt markets at Deutsche Bank.
He will join Barclays Capital in Singapore in June and will report to Jon Pratt, head of Asia debt capital markets, excluding Japan and Australia.
According to one senior debt capital markets banker, firms are looking to hire selectively at the junior level. “Yes, there is some hiring selectively to pick up the slack. At our firm, it’s been pretty stable at the senior levels. There is some flexibility to hire in Asia, but I don’t think we’re going to see boom time hiring,” he said.
There have also been a few recent additions to the syndicate desks of various investment banks, though internal transfers are also helping to make up the numbers.
Brendan Murphy, an associate, joined the debt syndicate desk at Deutsche Bank last week. He reports functionally to Herman van den Wall Bake and to Mark Whitcroft for the execution of public bond deals. Murphy has been with Deutsche Bank for three years and transferred from New York.
Damien Tan, who has been with Citi for close to eight years, has joined Citi’s fixed income syndicate desk, as part of the bank’s internal rotation programme. He was previously a relationship manager covering financial institutions for five years and worked with the offshore bank last year.
Elsewhere, Daniel Hahn has joined Bank of America Merrill Lynch on the Asia debt syndicate desk as an analyst.
