Philip Wong to join BoA Merrill in equity syndicate role

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has hired former UBS syndicate banker Philip Wong as it continues to build its equity capital markets business in Asia. According to sources, Wong will join the ECM team at BoA Merrill as an associate and will work on the equity syndicate desk that is run by Nicholas Lee.

His hire comes a couple of months after BoA Merrill hired Wong’s former boss at UBS, James Fleming, as co-head of Asia ECM and also follows Matthew Koder’s move from UBS to BoA Merrill earlier this year to become head of the corporate and investment banking business in Asia.

The fact that the firm continues to hire from UBS is therefore quite natural, although Wong’s departure is another blow for the Swiss bank, which lost two members of its equity syndicate in March when Steve Lam and Harish Raman both resigned to join Citi. Wong’s departure just over one week ago also came just before the arrival of Ross Baildon who started work at UBS last Friday as the new head of equity syndicate, replacing Sam Kendall who was promoted to head of ECM for Asia in April.