Cazenove adds two to Singapore corporate finance team

Mid-cap focused investment bank Cazenove has made two new hires to its corporate finance team in Singapore as it aims to expand its business in Southeast Asia. Sylvia Wong joins from DBS Bank in Singapore as a vice-president, while Goh Joon Hwa comes across from Societe Generale as an associate. Both will focus on Southeast Asia and will report to Tay Toh Sin, who joined Cazenove in August last year as head of corporate finance in Singapore.

Tay says the bank is in the process of strengthening its platform in key markets and notes that the corporate finance experience of the new hires will enhance its ability to provide tailored advisory services to its clients.

Cazenove is probably mostly known for its capital markets franchise in Hong Kong, which has helped numerous Chinese mid-caps to list on the local stockmarket through the years. However, the UK-based investment bank has had an office in Singapore since 1990 and has a number of key clients that are listed there, including Hong Kong-based Noble Group which it has been working with for the past three years. When Tay joined, Cazenove said her chief task would be to extend the bank's relationships with Southeast Asian clients and to leverage its Greater China franchise to bring more Chinese corporates to list in Singapore. And in an interview with FinanceAsia in January, CazenoveÆs Asia CEO, May Tan, said that while the bankÆs China business is great, it doesnÆt want to be completely dependent on one country only û thus the build-up of the Singapore business.

The corporate finance team is involved in capital markets, M&A and financial advisory operations. This includes arranging equity, equity-linked and debt transactions for Asian issuers, and the provision of corporate broking and financial advice. Information provided by the bank says it has been involved in more than 180 issues in the region since 1997, raising over $130 billion.

At DBS, Wong was a vice-president of the resource and development team, which is part of the corporate and investment banking division. Her key focus was to structure equity and equity-related transactions in a wide range of industries, including food and beverage, healthcare, property, hospitality-related, logistics and media. She began her career with the DBS group in 1996 as a research analyst with DBS Vickers Securities. Prior to that, she was a financial journalist in Singapore.

Goh leaves a position at SocGen where he was involved in coverage and execution of M&A transactions in Southeast Asia. Prior to that, he worked in the Southeast Asia M&A team at DBS Bank and with JPMorganÆs investment banking team in Malaysia.