Nathan McMurtray, who moved to Standard Chartered just over a year ago to rebuild its equity-linked franchise, has left the bank and will be joining Deutsche Bank in a similar position after about three months of gardening leave, according to sources.
McMurtray will be joined by Mrinal Parekh and Susanne Schroeter, who worked with him at Standard Chartered. All three resigned on Friday. The trio will help rebuild the equity-linked team at Deutsche Bank, which has been thin on resources since former head of equity-linked origination for Asia ex-Japan, Pierre-Alexis Renaudin, transferred back to London at the start of this year.
McMurtray is expected to take on Renaudin’s former job, while Parekh and Schroeter will assume less senior roles in the same team.
Deutsche Bank topped the league table for equity-linked issuance in Asia ex-Japan in 2006, but has been slipping in the rankings ever since, placing seventh in 2008, fifth in 2009 and outside the top 10 in 2010, according to Dealogic. It doesn’t make the top 10 year-to-date either, but has worked on a couple of public market deals, including the recent $172.5 million CB for Asia Cement (together with Goldman Sachs), which was upsized by 38%, and the $500 million CB for London-listed Essar Energy in January, which it led together with J.P. Morgan and Standard Chartered.
Standard Chartered hired McMurtray as global head of origination for equity-linked securities in April 2010 to fill the vacancy left by Ronnie Potel who jumped ship to Morgan Stanley. The bank lost two other valued members of its CB franchise at the same time since Morgan Stanley also poached Dave Sandor, a vice-president in CB origination, and Janice Dunnett, who was head of CB sales. McMurtray was brought in to rebuild the team.
Looking strictly at the volume of business, he has done a good job, with Standard Chartered advancing to third in the league table (excluding Chinese banks) last year from eighth in 2009. Notable transactions included Hon Hai Precision’s $1 billion three-year, zero-yield CB that it worked on together with Credit Suisse, and a $400 million CB for Shui On Land, which it led on a sole basis. The latter broke new ground in Asia by including an equity swap with a major shareholder instead of with the issuer itself, which saved the company from having to mark-to-market the swap.
Standard Chartered is now finding itself in the undesirable position of having to rebuild its equity-linked team for the second time in just over a year. However, it won’t be entirely from scratch since Barton Lee, a director, and one associate are both staying with the bank.
Traditionally a firm known for its fixed-income business, Standard Chartered has made a push into equities during the past couple of years through several big hires and the acquisition of the Cazenove’s Asian business in January 2009. However, it runs its equity-linked business differently to most other major houses, as it offers CBs primarily as an alternative or complementary product to its existing clients, as opposed to targeting any company in the region looking to issue CBs.
Sources familiar with the situation say the business model is not the reason why McMurtray and his two colleagues are leaving the bank. Rather, the move might have been related to recent management changes, as well as turnover on the sales desk. With the CB market in Asia becoming more competitive, the team might have been concerned that the turmoil linked to these changes would affect their ability to win new business.
Last week, Standard Chartered announced that its group head of capital markets, Christian Wait, had been promoted to global head of financial markets sales. The bank didn’t immediately announce his replacement, but named Philip Cracknell, who is global head of syndications, as interim head of capital markets while it looks for suitable candidates. Wait joined Standard Chartered in 2008 and hired McMurtray.
Before joining Standard Chartered, McMurtray was head of Asia equity-linked origination at South Africa-based Standard Bank. He was previously head of Asia-Pacific equity-linked origination at Morgan Stanley, but left the bank at the end of January 2009 as part of a reorganisation. He joined Morgan Stanley in New York in 2000, initially within global technology banking and then in the global capital markets division with a focus on CBs. He transferred to Hong Kong in January 2005.
Schroeter joined Standard Chartered in July last year and previously worked with McMurtray at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong. She has also worked in both equity and debt capital markets with Morgan Stanley in Europe.
Parekh has been with Standard Chartered for eight years, initially as a credit analyst in Mumbai. He transferred to Singapore and the debt capital markets division in December 2006 and joined the CB group a year later.
