A new cross border advisory firm is being set up by former Barclays executives based in Asia, according to Reuters.
Ed King, Peter Ding, Johan Leven and Helge Weiner-Trapness were forced to leave the Barclays Hong Kong branch last summer as CEO Antony Jenkins announced plans to cut 7,000 jobs worldwide to save costs.
They each have around 25 years’ experience in the investment banking sector, but declined to comment on the news of the new firm.
All four have previously worked together at Wall Street banks. King was the former leader for Morgan Stanley’s Asian mergers and acquisitions practice who was then succeeded by Ding. Leven was Morgan Stanley’s head of corporate finance for the Asia-Pacific region and Weiner-Trapness ran the financial institutions group for this bank. Alongside this, Leven and Weiner-Trapness both worked together at Goldman Sachs.
Their new firm is predicted to start operating within the next few months and will employ more staff during this time.
The launch of this boutique advisory firm comes at a time when independent firms are beginning to make an impact in Asia and are climbing the financial advisory league tables as bigger banks are attempting to step back from investment banking in order to cut down on costs.
Examples of this include Lazard, one of the world’s biggest independent investment banks that ranked 12th last year among merger advisors in the Asia-Pacific region, up from 15th in 2013 and 34th in 2012. Also, Rival Moelis & Co ranked 9th in deals announced so far this year, up from 52nd at the end of last year.
