Bank of America Merrill Lynch has hired Zhang Xiuping to co-head mergers and acquisitions for Asia alongside Michael Cho, who is currently the sole head of M&A for the region.
Zhang joins from Deutsche Bank where she was most recently head of M&A for China. She started her investment banking career with J.P. Morgan in New York, working in the global M&A group.
Zhang and fellow co-head Cho are charged with identifying M&A opportunities, maintaining strategic dialogue with companies in the region and ensuring best execution of transactions. Cho is a 15-year Merrill Lynch veteran who was appointed head of Asia M&A in May last year following the resignation of Kalpana Desai, the then head of M&A for Asia-Pacific (ex-Japan). Desai joined Macquarie Capital Advisers as head of Asia a few months later.
The announcement was made in an internal memo from Jayanti Bajpai and Jiro Seguchi, who co-head corporate and investment banking for Asia-Pacific, and Jeffrey Kaplan, who is head of global M&A and corporate finance.
Zhang has an MBA from Rollins College in the US and a bachelors degree from Shanghai Jiaotong University.
