Bear Stearns poaches equity structurers from Deutsche

Bear Stearns has expanded its structured equity products team in Asia with three new hires in Hong Kong.

The US bank’s new services include synthetic equity finance, such as equity swaps and other derivatives-based instruments, and a synthetic prime brokerage service to handle financing and execution.

Dan Azzi joins the firm as a managing director responsible for equity finance trading, synthetic prime brokerage and market access products designed to ease entry into Asia’s emerging markets.

May Woo and Raoul Preller have also joined as associate director and vice-president respectively to cover Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore and emerging markets such as China, India, South Korea and Taiwan.

Before joining Bear Stearns, Azzi spent seven years at Deutsche Bank Securities, first as a structured equity finance trader and most recently as head of equity swaps trading and market access products for Asia, ex-Japan.

Woo previously spent six years at Deutsche Bank Securities as head of the Asia, ex-Japan stock lending desk, a business she helped expand into South Korea and Taiwan. Before that, she set up the equity finance desk at Rabobank in Hong Kong and worked on the equity finance desk at Nomura Hong Kong.

Preller was previously a synthetic equity trader at Deutsche Bank Securities, where he managed daily flow in Asian swaps, warrants and promissory notes covering all the major Asian markets, with a focus on China, India, Taiwan and South Korea.