Florian Schmidt has been appointed head of debt capital markets for SC Lowy as the independent fixed income specialist looks to boost its presence in Asia’s burgeoning bond market.
Schmidt, who started his first day at the firm on Monday, will oversee SC Lowy's expansion of its primary debt issuance capabilities in the public as well as private space, according to an internal memo seen by FinanceAsia. Based in Hong Kong, he reports to co-founder and chief investment officer Soo Cheon Lee.
Schmidt joins his new firm from ING, where he was co-head of Asian DCM, specialising in high-yield debt, for nearly nine years and based in Singapore.
“I am delighted to be joining SC Lowy, an investment banking business that has been and continues to be strongly committed to high-yield, a product Asia will increasingly rely on as disintermediation runs its course,” Schmidt said in the memo.
Prior to ING, he worked at Bank of America, where he spent three years as co-head of DCM origination for Asia emerging markets.
Before BoA, Schmidt spent a number of years in the DCM group at HSBC and was also head of Asia debt origination for Nomura. He first came to the region with Deutsche Bank, where he worked in the German bank’s DCM and corporate finance division.
SC Lowy, an independent fixed-income specialist with full investment bank capabilities, reported trading volumes of $5.4 billion in 2014. It has become a market leader in secondary loan trading in Asia, the Middle East, and Australia, a top-ten Asian high-yield bond trader, and a successful entrant into DCM.
Headquartered in Hong Kong with offices in London, New York, Seoul and Sydney, SC Lowy has built a global client network of over 500 international and regional banks, asset managers, hedge funds, private equity and pension funds, family offices and corporations.
The firm is seeking to grow its presence in Asia’s thriving debt markets. Asia ex-Japan G3 bond volumes — comprising bonds denominated in dollars, euros, or yen — reached a record-high of $219 billion last year, a 46% jump from 2013’s total annual volume, according to Dealogic data.
