DÆAbo brings three years worth of experience and relationships from Southeast Asia with him from Credit Suisse, where he was also responsible for equity origination in this region. Within Southeast Asia, Credit Suisse is particularly strong in Indonesia and Vietnam and also quite active in Singapore. Overall, DÆAbo has 15 years of experience in the Asian capital markets and has spent the past 10 years in the region. He left Credit Suisse in November 2007.
The hire comes only a few weeks after John Sturmey started his job as head of ECM for Asia-Pacific at ABN AMRO and suggests that he may be looking to partially build his own team as he tries to expand the ABN/RBS footprint within primary equity issuance in the region. Sturmey was previously head of equity syndicate at UBS.
Prior to joining Credit Suisse in December 2004, DÆAbo was a managing director within the ECM team and head of syndicate at CLSA.
Zwaan's appointment is part of an effort to develop and institutionalise a best practice Asian private placement business within RBS/ABN AMRO and he will be focusing on a range of instruments, including PIPEs (private investment in public equities), private convertible bonds, structured equity financing, and pre-IPO transactions.
ABN AMRO is in a good position to capitalise on the growing interest for these type of private transactions as it is still able - and willing - to take principal positions in its deals, while many of its investment bank rivals are being forced to restrict their use of balance sheets due to subprime-related losses.
Zwaan will report to Graeme Booth, head of strategic equity solutions for Asia.
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