On the move

• Deutsche Bank has hired Sal Mirran as head of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) for Asia Pacific. Mirran joins from Fannie Mae, where since 2008 he led strategy and policy-maker engagements, providing solutions and research related to volatility in the US mortgage market.

In his new role, he will be based in Hong Kong and will report regionally to David Lynne, head of global rates for Asia, and globally to Doug Naidus, global head of RMBS.

He has responsibility for building a local mortgage origination and risk management platform across Asia, including Japan and Australia, and providing clients in the region with access to Deutsche Bank’s RMBS platform in the US.

• Stephen Chiu has been appointed chief agency officer for Sun Life Financial in Hong Kong, including responsibility for life and annuity products. He reports to Mike Goodall, chief distribution officer, and will be a member of the Hong Kong executive team. 

Chiu joins the insurer from Nan Shan Life Insurance Company, where he was senior vice-president. Prior to this, he worked for MetLife Insurance Company in the US and Taiwan, working as director and head of sales promotion, training and marketing.

• Newly merged global professional services company Towers Watson has confirmed that Mark Saunders has been appointed as managing director of its Hong Kong office. In this role, Saunders will have overall responsibility for Towers Watson’s business in Hong Kong.
Prior to this, he served as a principal of Towers Perrin and as managing director of the risk consulting and software business in Asia. He joined Towers Perrin in 1997.

• Nomura’s Glenn Schiffman is to leave Asia to take up the role of co-head of investment banking for the Americas, working alongside Tomoko Lino, who previously led investment banking for the Americas.

Schiffman was a senior managing director and head of investment banking for Asia ex-Japan. He will be replaced by Patrick Schmitz-Morkramer and Colin Banfield, who will become joint heads of investment banking for Asia ex-Japan, reporting to Nomura’s Asia ex-Japan chief executive, Minoru Shinohara.

• Toshiyuki Tomita has been appointed as managing director and head of Société Générale‘s Tokyo branch’s flow foreign exchange sales team.

Based in Tokyo, he is charged with building a stronger local partnership with the bank’s Japanese fixed income and currencies (FIC) base and also to focus on providing high quality information, strong pricing and global coverage to clients in Japan, as part of the integrated global fixed income and currencies team.

Tomita joins from Nomura Securities, Tokyo, where he was an executive director, and will report to Adam Reynolds, head of Asia-Pacific FIC sales.

• The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), the International Organization of Securities Commissions (Iosco) and the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) have appointed Tony D’Aloisio as chairman of the Joint Forum for a two-year period.
The Joint Forum was established in 1996 under the aegis of the three international supervisory bodies to tackle issues common to the banking, securities and insurance sectors, including the supervision of financial conglomerates.

D’Aloisio is the chairman of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) and succeeds John Dugan, chief officer of the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, in this new role.

• Alasdair Morrison has joined Citi to take on the newly created role of senior adviser, Citi Asia.

In this role Morrison, a former head of conglomerate Jardine Matheson and chairman and chief executive of Morgan Stanley Asia, will support the ongoing expansion of Citi's global banking franchise in the region. He will also join Citi's senior strategic advisory group.

• Macquarie Securities has made three equity sales and research appointments in Mumbai.
Sudhanshu Bhuwalka joins as an associate director in equity sales from Reliance Equities, where he was co-head of equity sales. Neil Nathwani joins in equity sales from Daiwa in London, where he was the India specialist for Europe. And Suresh Ganapathy will head the Australian security firm’s financial research team for India. He joins from Deutsche Bank’s cash equities business in India.

The trio will report to Andrew Mouat, head of Macquarie’s cash equities business in India. Macquarie now has 54 staff in Mumbai.

• Barclays Capital has appointed Jacqueline Tan as head of its risk solutions group for South-east Asia. Tan’s role will be to oversee the delivery of risk solutions across all asset classes to investment banking clients in South-east Asia. She will be based in Singapore and report to Patrick Kwan and Andrew Jones, co-heads of global financing and risk solutions for Asia Pacific, as well as to Lutfey Siddiqi, head of corporate foreign exchange and forex distribution for Asia Pacific.

She joins from Royal Bank of Scotland in Singapore, where she was most recently head of corporate risk solutions sales in Asia.

• BBVA has hired Eugene Lee as its new head of equity sales for global markets for Asia, based in Hong Kong.

The role includes responsibility for cash and derivatives for Asia Pacific for the group.
Lee was formerly HSBC’s head of private banking coverage for equity derivatives in Hong Kong. He has worked in investment banking and equity derivatives for 12 years, including a stint at JP Morgan.

• The Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) has confirmed that Li Xiaojia has succeeded Chow Man Yiu as chief executive.

Li’s role as chief executive means he becomes an ex-officio member of the board of directors of HKEx and a director of all HKEx’s subsidiaries. He now has a service contract with HKEx for an initial term of three years, running until October 15, 2012.  

RBS GROWS SINGAPORE BUSINESS
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has appointed several senior managers to support the growth of its wholesale banking business within its global banking and markets (GBM) team in Singapore.

The appointments include: Samir Atassi, who is the new head of institutional sales for Asia ex-Japan; Lee Knight, who is moving within RBS to become the regional head of G11, delta and credit trading as well as adding responsibility for short-term markets and financing trading to his remit; Arun Khurana, who is also moving within RBS to take on the role of regional head of solutions sales and corporate risk solutions in Singapore; and Sim Buck Khim and Steve Chen, who are to become senior bankers in the banking team.

Atassi joins RBS from Merrill Lynch in London. In his new role, he will be part of the institutional coverage, research and strategy (ICRS) global management team, reporting to Pierre Ferland, Asia Pacific head of markets, and Brian Reid, global head of financial institution sales, research and strategy.

In his new role, Knight will also report to Ferland as well as to Steve Ashley, global head of flow delta trading and flow credit trading.

Khurana was previously based in India and has relocated to Singapore to focus on the delivery of risk management products, in particular foreign exchange, rates, credit, equities and commodities. He will report into John Cummins, Asia-Pacific head of corporate risk solutions.

Sim joins RBS from SPI (Australia) Assets, where he was head of treasury. He will now be responsible for strengthening relationships with government-linked clients, in particular in debt capital markets. In his 13 years in banking, he has held senior positions in the financial sector, including head of debt capital markets and corporate coverage group for Deutsche Bank in Singapore.

Chen was previously country executive and head of GBM for Vietnam, and will relocate to Singapore to look after key clients within the agriculture and commodities sectors, as well as select offshore clients.

Both Sim and Chen and will report to Muhammad Aurangzeb, head of GBM for South-east Asia and Pakistan. 

CREDIT SUISSE BOOSTS GLOBAL MANAGEMENT
Credit Suisse has made a number of senior appointments across its different business units. Its asset management unit named Neil Harvey as managing director and head of Asia Pacific and head of emerging markets globally.

He returns to Credit Suisse from Renaissance Group, where he was most recently deputy chief executive and chairman for international operations. Based in Hong Kong, he will report to Robert Shafir, chief executive for asset management and Kai Nargolwala, chief executive for Credit Suisse in Asia Pacific.

Harvey replaces Salman Shoaib who, after an 18-month stint in his latest roles, was named head of corporate development for Asia Pacific at Credit Suisse. He will be responsible for coordinating long-term, cross-divisional strategic development and key account management planning for the bank in Asia Pacific and will be based in Singapore.

Shoaib also reports to Nargolwala as well as to Nick Adamus, head of corporate development in Zurich.  Shoaib will take on the role of branch manager for Credit Suisse’s Singapore branch and senior corporate officer for Credit Suisse (Singapore), subject to regulatory approval.

The bank has also appointed Bunt Ghosh and Atsushi Mizuno as vice-chairmen of fixed income for Asia Pacific. Ghosh was previously head of fixed-income research for Credit Suisse globally, and is to relocate from London to Hong Kong. He joined Credit Suisse in 1986 from Oxford University, where he was a research fellow and tutor in Economics.

Mizuno will also be based in Hong Kong, and rejoins the bank having recently completed a full term as a member of the policy board of the Bank of Japan between 2004 and 2009.
The two will report to Carsten Stoehr, head of fixed income, Asia Pacific.

Credit Suisse also confirmed Deborah Lee will join its capital services team within the Asia-Pacific prime services business as a director. Based in Hong Kong, Lee will report to Benjamin Happ, head of capital services for Asia Pacific. She has worked in the prime brokerage and hedge fund industry for close to a decade and joins from Goldman Sachs, where she was an executive director in the capital introduction team.

The Swiss bank has also beefed up its equities unit, including the establishment of a new real estate investment trust (reit) equities research team in Sydney. Richard Close has joined from Citi in Australia, where he was a director in institutional research sales. Jarrod Martin will join Credit Suisse in March as joint lead for Australian bank research with James Ellis. Martin will join from RBS, where he led the banking equities research team.

Stephen Rich has joined as head of the new reit equities research team from UBS, where he has covered domestic large caps since 2007. The other new team members are Rowena Causely, who joins from Macquarie Group; John Lee, who joins from Stockland Group; and Vanessa Webb, who was previously at law firm Jeffreys & Associates.