Deutsche Bank shuffles debt roles in Asia

Deutsche Bank has shuffled some of the roles within its Asia debt team. As part of the changes, Mark Whitcroft will leave the Asia debt syndicate desk in Singapore at the end of this week and relocate to New York to focus on US corporate debt syndication.

Whitcroft will report to Jeanmarie Genirs, the New York-based head of global risk syndicate for the Americas. Whitcroft joined Deutsche Bank in 2009 from HSBC, having worked on the Asian syndicate desk for more than four years. Prior to that, he worked for HSBC in London in emerging market bond and forex sales and capital markets from 2003.

The bank has also appointed Haitham Ghattas as Asia head of high-yield syndicate, starting from July 1, 2013. He will report to Jake Gearhart, Deutsche Bank’s head of global risk syndicate for Asia. Ghattas, who is currently based in Hong Kong, is expected to move to Singapore eventually.

Whitcroft’s move to some extent created an opening on the syndicate side, which Ghattas is filling. While Ghattas’s new role will see him move from debt capital markets to syndicate, according to a source, the two are closely aligned at the bank.

“People want to try different things, but we ultimately want to retain them and keep the DNA,” says a source. “At Deutsche, syndicate and debt capital markets (DCM) are separate — syndicate is part of credit and trading and DCM is part of investment banking, but the two are closely aligned.”

Ghattas has been at Deutsche since 1999, and was most recently co-head of leveraged debt capital markets, Asia, together with Deepak Dangayach. Ghattas was responsible for high-yield bond origination and Dangayach was responsible for loan capital markets. Dangayach has been promoted to head of leveraged debt capital markets for Asia and will have sole responsibility for both high-yield bond origination and loans. He will continue to be based in Hong Kong.

Deutsche has also hired Guillaume Du Cheyron as a director in its fixed income capital markets business. He will be running Southeast Asia high-yield debt capital markets and will report to Dangayach. Du Cheyron starts work on June 3 and will be based in Singapore. Before joining Deutsche, he worked at Citi in Hong Kong where he was most recently a director within Asian capital markets origination. Before that, he spent six years in high-yield capital markets at BNP Paribas in New York, from 2000 to 2006.