The recent game of musical chairs is continuing for bankers selling initial public offerings (IPOs) in Asia, with Bank of America Corp (BofA) the latest to announce changes.
The US firm hired 13-year Credit Suisse Group AG veteran Tucker Highfield as cohead of Asia Pacific equity capital markets, internal memo obtained yesterday by Bloomberg said.
He is to work alongside Shu Nagata, who was promoted to Asia Pacific cohead after leading Bank of America’s Japan ECM coverage.
UBS Group AG on Monday announced it had appointed Hannah Malter as Asia head of equity capital markets syndicate, a memo obtained by Bloomberg showed.
Malter, who formerly worked as Asia-Pacific chief of staff at the bank, is getting the new role just weeks after rejoining the ECM team to focus on Asia-into-US initial public offerings.
The moves come at the beginning of what’s expected to be a banner year for listings in the region, driven by share sales from Chinese technology companies.
Smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp (小米) is preparing an IPO in Hong Kong with a target valuation of as much as US$100 billion, while food review and delivery app Meituan Dianping is planning a listing at a valuation of at least US$60 billion, people with knowledge of the matter have said.
UBS is making changes as the bank also fights a ban on sponsoring IPOs in Hong Kong. They are not the only moves.
Sunil Dhupelia, who was an executive director at UBS, is joining Credit Suisse’s equity capital markets syndicate team, people familiar with the matter said last week.
Dhupelia is to assume some of the responsibilities that were held by Highfield, they said.
It was only last month that UBS restructured its capital markets group in Asia, combining the businesses that handle stock offerings and debt sales under a single leader.
UBS also said on Monday it is promoting former syndicate head Andrea Casati to vice chairman of Asia Pacific ECM, the memo showed.
A spokesman for UBS confirmed the contents of the memo.
Bank of America also promoted Kevin Su, its greater china ECM chief, to vice chairman of Asia ECM, the memo showed.
Anvita Arora was named head of South Asia ECM and Asia-Pacific equity-lined origination. She is to relocate to Hong Kong from London, where she led equity-linked origination for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the memo showed.
A representative for Bank of America declined to comment.
As the bankers trade places, more deals are getting ready to launch. Ping An Insurance (Group) Co’s (中國平安保險), China’s biggest insurer by market value, started gauging demand this week for a planned listing of its Good Doctor health-care app.
Equity offerings in Hong Kong have already raised US$20.3 billion in the first quarter this year, the highest in at least a decade, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy