Bank of America Merrill Lynch has hired three bankers in the region to strengthen its investment banking business, including a head of China financial institutions group (FIG).
Michael Woo started his new role on Tuesday as head of its China FIG coverage. Woo is based in Hong Kong and reports to Michael Tan, the Asia-Pacific ex-Japan head of FIG. Woo joins from Goldman Sachs, where he was most recently a managing director in the regional FIG team.
In his new role, Woo will be responsible for senior client coverage across the China FIG sector, including banking, insurance and securities companies in the country.
Meanwhile, Kyoung-Suk Kang will join the US bank as a director in Korea investment banking. He was most recently at HSBC as a senior officer responsible for origination and execution of both M&A and capital markets transactions. He has also worked at Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank in both Seoul and Hong Kong.
Dongwon Lee will rejoin BoA Merrill, also as a director in Korea IB. He joins from UBS where he held a similar position. Before that, Lee spent nine years as a member of the BoA Merrill’s Korea investment banking team.
The bank’s new hires indicate that it is keen on developing more opportunities in the region after making several new appointments across the region recently, including SeungGu Park’s addition as Korea country executive in May this year and George Lin from Credit Suisse as head of Asia consumer, retail and healthcare investment banking.
Last month, two ex-Credit Suisse bankers joined the debt capital markets syndicate team. Devesh Ashra joined as head of Asia DCM syndicate along with Hital Desai. Grant Chamberlain also joined last month as head of Australia M&A.
