On the move

- Nomura has named Christian Howe as head of its Asia Pacific credit markets business, looking after flow credit, structured credit and illiquid trading. He was previously head of credit trading for Asia ex-Japan in Nomura's special situations group. Howe joined Lehman Brothers' global opportunities group in Hong Kong in 2007 and was previously a credit trader for Lehman Brothers in Tokyo.

- Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx) has named Charles Li as the successor to chief executive of the exchange Paul Chow when Chow steps down in January next year. Li is currently chairman of JP Morgan China and has worked at the US bank for the past six years. HKEx has also extended chief operating officer Gerald Greiner's contact for another three years once it expires in February next year.

- Bank of America-Merrill Lynch has promoted Mike Joo, who has been running Merrill Lynch's debt capital markets business for North Asia since joining the dealer in 2006, to chief operating officer for global markets, based in New York. Joo is now responsible for strategy and business support as well as business supervision for the bank's global sales and trading business across both equities and fixed income. He reports to New York-based Tom Montag, who was hired by Merrill Lynch in April last year from Goldman Sachs to head global sales and trading.

- Shaun Wallis, previously chief executive and president of HSBC Bank in Brazil, is moving to Hong Kong to become global head of business management for commercial banking, a role that includes developing a commercial banking head office for the group. He will be replaced by Conrado Engel. Meanwhile, HSBC has appointed Paulo Maia to run the bank's operations in Australia from July 1 after a spell of just over a year as deputy chief executive of HSBC in Brazil. Maia replaces Stuart Davis, who was named chief executive of HSBC India in April. Davis had worked as chief executive of HSBC Bank Australia since 2002.

- Credit Suisse has confirmed the appointment of Kenneth Pang and Min Park as co-heads of equity derivatives and convertibles for Asia Pacific. Based in Hong Kong and reporting to Osama Abassi, head of equities for Asia Pacific, the pair will attempt to bring the bank's equity derivatives and convertibles businesses closer together. Pang will run trading, while Park will look after sales in the region. Their roles include coverage of Japan and Australia. They previously led the Asian equity derivatives business at UBS.

Kurt Ersoy, head of equity derivatives marketing for Asia at Credit Suisse, is now on sabbatical. Adam Cowperthwaite, previously head of structured retail products for Asia Pacific, left the bank earlier this year, following Alex Lin, head of equity derivatives and convertible trading.

Credit Suisse has also has recruited Matt Pecot from UBS as its head of prime services for Asia Pacific. Pecot most recently worked as head of prime brokerage services for the Americas for UBS following a stint as head of prime services and head of prime brokerage services for Asia Pacific between 2004 and 2007. Pecot has also worked in equity research and institutional sales at UBS, where he was based in Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Pecot will also report to Abbasi as well as to Philip Vasan, global head of prime services and capital services in New York.

- Barclays Capital has hired Timothy Last from Bank of America-Merrill Lynch as head of equity derivatives flow sales for non-Japan Asia. Last will be based in Hong Kong and will report to David Campbell, head of north Asia distribution, and Nicholas Moreira, head of equities for Asia Pacific. Last was head of equity derivatives sales in Asia Pacific at Merrill Lynch and has previously worked for JP Morgan in Hong Kong and Macquarie Bank in Australia. The hire is part of Barclays Capital's effort to build out its equity platform in Asia Pacific.

- Robert Rankin has taken over from Colin Grassie as chief executive of Deutsche Bank for Asia Pacific ex-Japan. Rankin will be based in Hong Kong and report to Jurgen Fitschen, a member of Deutsche Bank's management board and global head of regional management in Frankfurt. Rankin was previously head of investment banking for Asia Pacific at UBS.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank's global head of equity trading and equity markets in Asia, Noreddine Sebti, has left the German bank. Phillip Lonergan, head of equity risk for the Asia Pacific region, has taken on interim responsibility for global markets for Asia equities for an unspecified length of time. Sebti previously ran equity derivatives trading and was regional head of global equity derivatives in the US, before moving to Hong Kong last year.

- The Hong Kong Mercantile Exchange, which plans to start trading commodity instruments in Hong Kong by the end of the year, has hired former AIG executive Jacky Choi as chief financial officer (CFO). Choi was previously CFO for AIG in Thailand after a stint as CFO in charge of the US insurer's consumer banking and credit card businesses in Hong Kong.

- ING Investment Management (ING IM) Asia Pacific has promoted Navin Suri to chief executive of its Indian investment management operations. Prior to joining ING IM India in August 2008 as a director of sales and distribution, Suri was head of sales and distribution for retail banking at ING in Singapore and before that was head of sales for investment products for Asia Pacific at Citi. He will report to Eddy Belmans, regional general manager for ING IM Asia Pacific.

- Bruce Hodges has joined Sun Life Financial as chief operations officer, responsible for the IT and operations functions for Asia. Hong Kong-based Hodges will report to Stephan Rajotte, president of Sun Life Financial Asia. Rajotte believes strong IT and operations are vital components to allow the insurer to forecast and mitigate risks. Prior to joining Sun Life, Hodges was president and chief executive of Manulife Insurance in Thailand. He has also worked in the life insurance and financial services industry in Canada, Japan and the US.

- Rob Morrison, chairman of CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, has retired after 10 years of leading the brokerage and investment group in Asia, both in his current role and previously as chief executive and chief operating officer. Morrison will be replaced by chief executive Jonathan Slone, who will retain his current position that he took up in January 2008.

- Thomas Meier, chief executive for Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe at Bank Julius Bar, will relocate from the Swiss private bank's headquarters in Zurich to Singapore on July 1. The bank says the move marks its long-term commitment to emerging markets.

- Watson Wyatt has appointed Nigel Knowles as head of risk and value management for Asia Pacific in its insurance and financial services practice. He has spent the past five years at Credit Suisse and HSBC developing structured derivatives and other capital markets solutions for insurance companies.

Knowles' previous experience includes 10 years at Standard Life Assurance Company in both the UK and Spain, where he developed financial modelling functions and risk analysis, including the establishment of stochastic evaluation and reporting techniques. Knowles will also act as Hong Kong practice leader at Watson Wyatt and will report to Michael Daly, head of life consulting for north Asia, and Richard Holloway, Watson Wyatt's Asia Pacific practice director of insurance and financial services.

- Peter Wu, head of structured equity derivative sales into China at BNP Paribas, has left the French bank along with his deputy, Qi Xuan. The remainder of the Hong Kong-based team has reportedly been merged to focus on Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, with Barry Lau, head of fund-linked derivatives in Hong Kong, managing the combined team. BNP Paribas declined to comment.

StanChart hiring spree continues

Standard Chartered has named Brent Eastburg as global head of credit trading in Singapore, where he will report to Remy Klammers, global head of fixed income trading. Eastburg previously worked at Ravenscourt Capital Partners in London, where he was a managing partner looking after the company's credit hedge fund portfolio.

He has also run the global markets trading team at Royal Bank of Scotland and worked at both Credit Lyonnais in London, where he was responsible for European credit portfolio management, and at Lehman Brothers in New York, London and Tokyo, where he worked in derivatives and credit trading.

Standard Chartered has also appointed Tee Choon Hong as regional head of capital markets for North-east Asia. Tee will seek additional business opportunities from existing clients in areas such as pre- and post-issuance hedging involving interest rate, foreign exchange, commodity, credit and equity instruments. He spent the past ten years working for Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong, where he worked in debt capital markets and corporate sales covering Asia ex-Japan. Tee's previous experience includes working for Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, Bankers Trust in London and Nikko Securities in Tokyo and London. His new role is based in Hong Kong, where he will report to Christian Wait, global head of capital markets in Singapore.

Standard Chartered has also beefed up operations in Taipei, hiring Sonny Lin as head of local corporate and middle market sales and Kevin Chen as a corporate salesman. Lin joined from Merrill Lynch, where he was a director in fixed income, currencies and commodities. He previously worked at Citi. Chen previously worked at Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, HSBC and KBC.