Mike Netterfield has left CIMB, where he headed corporate finance for Asia ex Asean and telecom, media and technology (TMT), a spokesman for the bank has confirmed.
The native Australian, who left CIMB at the end of last year, is moving back to Australia for personal reasons, a source familiar with the matter said.
Francois Cohas has been appointed head of corporate finance for North & South Asia at CIMB, taking up most of Netterfield's responsibilities. Cohas was previously head of M&A and ECM execution North Asia and will continue to oversee execution work.
Netterfield joined ABN Amro in March 2001 in London and moved to Hong Kong in 2002. He was head of technology and financial sponsors at ABN Amro and, subsequently, became head of corporate finance at RBS, which was part of the consortium which took over the Dutch bank in 2007. Malaysia-based CIMB Group purchased the Asian investment banking arm of RBS in 2012.
Cohas also joined CIMB from RBS where was head of M&A and ECM execution, North Asia. He joined ABN Amro in London in 2004 and founded the bank’s merchant banking group, a principal investment group -- first out of London and then out of Hong Kong in 2007, where he led Asia Pacific investments.
Prior to ABN Amro, Cohas worked for several years in TMT investment banking at Merrill Lynch in London and New York.
Cohas will report to Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz, who was appointed CEO of CIMB investment bank in January.
Zafrul, who was previously from Maybank, is replacing Charon Wardini Mokhzani who left CIMB at the end of October to become an executive director with Khazanah Nasional, CIMB’s largest shareholder. In addition to CEO, Zafrul has also been appointed head of the investment banking division (IBD) and co-head of corporate clients solutions (CCS).
According to a source, CIMB is restructuring its business so that IBD and CCS exist as two separate divisions within the investment bank. IBD will continue to focus on origination and execution across equity and debt capital markets, corporate finance and advisory, while CCS will comprise institutional and corporate client coverage.
