Standard Chartered has hired experienced FIG banker Steven Sun as head of its financial institutions coverage in North Asia, according to a press release issued on Wednesday. Sun started his new job on October 8, so has already been with the bank for a month.
He brings more than 25 years of investment banking experience to Standard Chartered, particularly in the financial sector. His latest job was with Barclays, where he was tasked with building a financial institutions group, commonly referred to as a FIG team, initially as head of FIG for Asia-Pacific and later as chairman of FIG.
Sun has previously also held similar positions at UBS and Merrill Lynch.
At Standard Chartered he will be responsible for deepening the firm’s relations with its strategic financial institutions clients in North Asia, and also for providing investment banking coverage and solutions to its wider client base in the financial sector across Asia, the press release said. Sun’s actual title will be head of North Asia financial institutions strategic coverage.
He will be based in Hong Kong and will report on the one hand to James Pearson, who is global head of FI strategic coverage, and on the other to Darcy Lai, who is head of North Asia origination and client coverage. When Sun joined Barclays in February 2009 he was also reporting to Lai, who was then regional head of investment banking at the UK firm.
Sun moved to Barclays after nine years as co-head of Asia FIG at UBS, a job that had a heavy emphasis on strategic transactions and equity financing. Prior to Sun coming on board, Barclays’ existing FIG team was essentially focused on debt capital markets (DCM) and he was hired to expand the business to include M&A and equity advisory, which was a new focus at the bank following its acquisition of Lehman Brother’s operations in the US.
However, in September 2010, under the leadership of new investment banking head Matthew Ginsburg, Barclays hired Helge Weiner-Trapness as its new head of FIG for Asia-Pacific and gave Sun the role of FIG chairman. Weiner-Trapness had a background with J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs, but joined from Asia Pacific Land where he was chief operating officer. Sun eventually left Barclays late last year.
Like Barclays, Standard Chartered is strongest in DCM, where it ranks fifth for G3 deals in the FIG sector in Asia ex-Japan so far this year (just ahead of Barclays as a matter of fact). But it is in the process of building up its equity capital markets (ECM) and M&A franchise across sectors, including FIG.
As of yesterday, Standard Chartered ranked number 47 in the FIG M&A advisory ranking for completed deals and number 29 in FIG ECM, Dealogic data show.
However, Standard Chartered’s business model is different to that of most other investment banks in the region in that it is targeting its ECM and M&A solutions to existing clients only. Hence, it not really competing for league table credit on the same basis as other banks.
