Kaman now sole head natural resources at Deutsche

Yash Kaman is now sole head of natural resources for Asia at Deutsche Bank after erstwhile co-head, Nicholas Taylor, left the bank late last year, according to two sources familiar with the matter.  

According to one of the sources, Taylor had been planning to leave for some time.

A spokesman for Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

Taylor had held the co-head role for about four years while Kaman joined Deutsche Bank in 2010 following the departure of Deutsche's previous co-heads for natural resources, Peter O'Malley and Eugene Tan.

Deutsche Bank last year handled a number of high-profile mergers and acquisitions from the natural resources sector. It advised China Minmetals, the parent company of Australia-listed MMG, when it led a consortium to acquire the Las Bambas copper mine from Glencore Xstrata for $5.85 billion.

Additionally, it advised Chinese steel firm Baosteel on its hostile takeover of Australia-listed Aquila and was one of the advisers to Chinese oil giant Sinopec on the sale of its retail unit for $17.4 billion.

Hong Kong-based Kaman was previously head of Asia oil and gas investment banking at J.P. Morgan and, during his time there, worked on large M&A deal such as CNOOC's $3.1 billion investment in Argentine firm Bridas Corporation -- where JP Morgan advised on the buy side.

Oil and gas has been a big part of Asia's M&A market. In 2012 and 2013 alone, China’s oil giants chalked up acquisitions of $55 billion. However, that pace slowed last year as large Chinese state-owned oil and gas companies focused on improving efficiency and governance. Globally, oil companies are under pressure from shareholders to improve returns.

But with the recent slump in oil prices, bankers expect that companies could pick up the pace of offshore acquisitions, though the tone remains cautious.

"Once oil prices start to recover we could see a lot of pent-up activity, but for now people are going to be watchful. No one has a handle on where oil prices are likely to be and no one wants to catch a falling knife," one natural resources banker said.

(With additional reporting by Alison Tudor Ackroyd)