Goldman Sachs Group Inc brought back Mark Schwartz to run its Asian business from Beijing, after an 11-year hiatus during which he ran George Soros’ hedge-fund group and started an investment firm with Raj Rajaratnam.
Schwartz, 57, will also be vice chairman of the firm, New York-based Goldman Sachs said in a statement yesterday. He fills a role left by Michael Evans, who served as chairman of the region since 2004 and is now based in New York as vice chairman and global head of growth markets.
IN BEIJING
The new Asia boss will be Goldman Sachs’ first regional chairman to be based in Beijing, signaling the growing importance of the world’s second-largest economy as the Wall Street bank targets emerging markets to bolster revenue. Rival JPMorgan Chase & Co in April said Jeff Urwin, its global head of investment banking, would move to Hong Kong and take on the additional role of Asia CEO.
Schwartz, who had joined Goldman Sachs’ investment banking unit in 1979, will again be on the management committee, which he served on from 1999 until his departure from the firm in 2001.
He was head of capital markets from 1991 to 1997, when he moved to Tokyo to oversee Japan operations. He was chairman of Asia from 1999 until 2001.
‘critical role’
“He played a critical role in helping to build our businesses across Asia Pacific,” Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein said in the statement.
“Those experiences and relationships will be even more important as we focus on continuing to help our clients and grow our franchise across the region,” Blankfein added.
In China, Goldman Sachs in 2004 became the first Wall Street bank to form a local securities venture with management control.
The nation last month agreed to let foreign banks raise their stakes in domestic securities firms to as much as 49 percent, from 33 percent.
EXPANDING
As well as stock and bond underwriting, the US firm is expanding its private-equity, asset management and institutional brokerage businesses in China.
Through its local partner, Goldman Sachs won approval in late 2010 to offer investment products, including to institutional investors and affluent clients.
It estimates that of all accounts opened by wealthy people at the firm globally last year, more than a quarter were in China.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Taiwanese prosecutors suspect that three people successfully smuggled at least one shipment of Nvidia Corp artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China after first exporting them to Japan, people familiar with the matter said. The trio was detained last week by the Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office for allegedly falsifying documents related to exports of Super Micro Computer Inc servers containing advanced Nvidia chips, which the US has barred from sale to China without a license from Washington. The move marked Taiwan’s first public crackdown on AI chip diversion after years of pressure from the US to take a more active role in curtailing
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) employee bonuses are likely to grow more than 30 percent this year, in line with the past few years as the company’s profits continue to set new records, an anonymous source cited TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) as saying yesterday. TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, is committed to taking care of its workers, the source said, citing Wei’s meeting with employees yesterday morning. Wei also expressed gratitude to employees for their contribution to the company’s improving bottom line, the source added. Since 2023, TSMC’s employee bonuses have grown at an annual rate of
RSS