UBS has announced the appointments of Joonkee Hong and JY Song to its fixed-income team in Korea. Hong will be head of fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) for the Swiss bank’s Korea operations and Song will join as the co-head of FICC distribution Korea.
Hong was most recently at Nomura where he was head of global finance for Asia-Pacific ex-Japan. Prior to that he was with Lehman.
Hong is actually returning to UBS; previously he worked for the bank in Hong Kong, Korea and in the US. During the course of his career he has built up experience in fixed income with a particular focus on Asia markets.
He will report directly to Shahryar Mahbub and Thomas Siegmund who are co-heads of FICC for Asia-Pacific.
Song joins the bank from Blackstone where he was head of marketing for Korea. He has 20 years of experience and previously held positions as head of investor sales Korea at Citi and head of fixed-income sales with Korea First Bank Securities.
As co-heads of FICC distribution in Korea, Song and BG Lee will be responsible for growing the UBS client franchise in Korea.
In his new role Song will be based in Hong Kong and will report to Andrew Kleeger and Gerald Chan who are co-heads of FICC distribution for Asia-Pacific.
In the game of musical chairs that has played out over the course of this year within Asia’s fixed-income circles, UBS has been an active hirer, bringing a series of fresh faces to its fixed-income ranks.
In April it announced the appointment of Paul Au as head of its debt syndicate desk for Asia. Au was pulled over from Citi replacing Fergus Edwards who was promoted internally to London to take on a global role within the emerging market debt team.
Prior to that, Mahbub had also joined from Citi before taking up his current post with UBS in February as co-head of FICC for Asia-Pacific. Mahbub's co-head, Thomas Siegmund, is also considered to be a fresh face in the UBS halls only joining the firm after announcing his resignation from Nomura as head of fixed income in March of this year.
