UBS has appointed Damien Brosnan and Peihao Huang as co-heads of its equity capital markets business in Asia with immediate effect, according to an internal memo seen by FinanceAsia on Friday.
Their official title will be co-heads of ECM Solutions, which includes both deal origination and syndication responsibilities and suggests the Swiss bank is officially integrating the two operations at a senior level.
Although UBS has separate equity origination and syndication teams, it has already brought the two teams closer by sharing resources. A number of junior bankers, for example, have worked for both teams since last year, according to a source familiar with the situation.
The new appointment means Brosnan is taking on multiple roles, given his existing responsibilities as head of equity syndicate and head of equity-linked origination in Asia.
Brosnan’s syndication role will be shared by Peihao Huang, who was an executive director mainly responsible for Greater China deal origination before the promotion. She will assume more of the investor-facing responsibilities previously held by Brosnan.
Brosnan and Huang will also take over secondary placement and block trade origination after Pascal Guttieres, former head of block trading in Asia ex-Japan, moved away from UBS to join event-driven fund Segantii earlier this year, according to a source familiar with the situation.
UBS was FinanceAsia’s Best Equity House in 2015. It was ranked first out of all the non-Chinese investment banks in the Asia ex-Japan ECM league table last year and helped its clients raise $15.6 billion from 57 deals, according to Dealogic.
However, the Swiss bank slipped out of the top 10 in the first quarter of 2016 as overall deal volumes shrank.
Still, the bank remained active in equity-linked issuance. It was involved in two of the three internationally marketed deals so far this year, including CRRC Corporation’s $600 million and China Railway Construction Corp's $500 million H-share convertible bond offerings.
Deals UBS has in the works include Vodafone India's $2 billion listing, Cikarang Listrindo’s $300 million Indonesia IPO and Fullerton Healthcare’s $300 million Singapore IPO.
