UBS has made a number of changes to its real estate team, promoting Fergus Horrobin and Henry Wong, and poaching Galen Lee from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Horrobin has been promoted to head the real estate, lodging and leisure investment (REL&L) banking group. He became chairman of the group in Asia in 2010, having earlier worked as part of the real estate corporate finance group in Britain and Europe. “During his time in Asia, he has been instrumental in ensuring the business has maintained its focus and momentum,” said a UBS internal memo, which FinanceAsia has seen.
UBS has hired Lee from Bank of America Merrill Lynch to further strengthen the real estate team. He joins as a managing director based in Singapore, charged with the Southeast Asian REL&L franchise. Lee has worked in the real estate sector in Singapore for 10 years.
In what the memo termed a related move, UBS said that Henry Wong will now coordinate the bank’s China real estate business. He rejoined UBS in 2010 from Temasek, where he was responsible for China REL&L, and will now work closely with UBS’s China team in covering the real estate sector.
And, in a UBS departure, it has been reported that Joe Zhang will be joining a Chinese micro-loan company. Zhang rejoined UBS in 2008 as deputy head of investment banking for China, working closely with Henry Cai, who was then chairman of investment banking for China at UBS. Cai subsequently took on the role of chairman of Asia investment banking while retaining his China responsibilities and left UBS last year to join Deutsche Bank as chairman of corporate finance for Asia and head of the corporate and investment bank. Zhang earlier worked with UBS as head of China research between 2001 and 2006, and before that for two years as co-head of China research. He left UBS to become chief operating officer of Shenzhen Investment for two years.
