Hopson to head equity syndicate at Samsung Securities

Samsung Securities International, the Asian arm of one of Korea’s largest securities firms, has hired Anthony Hopson as head of equity syndicate as it continues to build its equity capital markets and investment banking business in the region. Hopson, who has a background on the syndicate desks at Schroders, Citi and Nomura, started his new job yesterday and is reporting to Stephen Metcalfe, who joined Samsung as head of equity capital markets in October last year.

As of now, Metcalfe and Hopson make up the entire ECM division, but the firm is looking to make another “half a dozen” hires in ECM and investment banking to support the business.

Hopson joins Samsung at a time when other banks are also seeing changes on their Asian equity syndicate desks in Hong Kong. In the past couple of weeks, Jackie Chien has left Citi to join Daiwa Capital Markets as the head of equity syndicate, while Steve Lam has left UBS to fill the space left by Chien at Citi, sources say.