Stephen CuUnjieng joins Evercore Partners from Macquarie

Boutique investment bank Evercore Partners has hired Stephen CuUnjieng who was last with Macquarie as a senior adviser.

CuUnjieng will be based in Asia and will focus on advising companies in the Asean region. At Macquarie he was most recently a vice-chairman with responsibility for the same region.

In March Evercore entered a strategic agreement with China-focused investment bank Citic Securities to launch a new firm, Citic Securities International Partners, which will focus on cross-border M&A advisory deals between China and other international markets and investment management. The alliance with Citic followed a 2006 strategic alliance that Evercore struck with Japanese firm Mizuho Securities to provide joint advisory services for US-Japan cross-border merger, acquisition and restructuring transactions. Evercore said CuUnjieng's mandate would be complementary to its existing agreements with Citic and Mizuho.

While at Macquarie, CuUnjieng worked with a number of companies based in the Philippines and Thailand including the Lopez Group, SM Investments and Bangkok Dusit Hospitals.

"I am extremely pleased to be joining Evercore as it seeks to further extend its successful franchise into Asia," said CuUnjieng. "I am especially excited to be reunited with my mentor, (Evercore vice-chairman) Eduardo Mestre, who I first worked with at Salomon Brothers and look forward to working with again."

Before Macquarie, CuUnjieng held roles with Merrill Lynch, Salomon Brothers, Morgan Grenfell Asia, and Manila-based PCI Capital.

Evercore is an investment banking boutique and investment management firm with offices in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Houston, London and Mexico. It was founded by former US deputy treasury secretary Roger Altman.

A number of boutique investment banks are using the financial crisis as an opportunity to expand. In some instances bankers who might otherwise not have considered joining a smaller platform are now available due to restructuring and redundancies. In other instances bankers are attracted to the entrepreneurial platform they provide.