Category Leaders on the Move

HSBC Said to Hire Nomura’s Wang to Boost China Fees

By Cathy Chan

March 17 (Bloomberg) — HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest lender, hired former Nomura Holdings Inc. executive Jane Wang to bolster investment banking in the world’s fastest-growing major economy, two people with direct knowledge of her plans said.

Wang, 42, will become China chairman for corporate finance in a newly created position and start in early April, the people said, asking not to be identified before an announcement. She will report to Liu Che-Ning, 44, the head of global corporate and investment banking in Hong Kong and China, they said.

The executive is HSBC’s second senior hire in six months in China, the world’s biggest market for initial public offerings in 2009. Liu, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley, joined HSBC in October.

HSBC ranks fourth in arranging overseas stock sales by Chinese companies this year, up from 16th in 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Before this year, the bank’s highest ranking in the past decade was eighth.

The London-based bank doesn’t have a license to underwrite domestic share sales in the country, lagging behind rivals including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., UBS AG and Credit Suisse Group AG.

Annie Cheng, a spokeswoman at HSBC in Hong Kong, declined to comment. The company, set up in 1865 as the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp., plans to trade its shares in Shanghai and moved Chief Executive Officer Michael Geoghegan to Hong Kong from London last month to sharpen its focus on Asia.

Lehman Takeover

Wang, who joined Nomura through the takeover of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s Asia operations in 2008, resigned last week from the Tokyo-based brokerage as vice chairman of China investment banking, people with knowledge of the matter have said. She will be based in Hong Kong with HSBC.

She joined Deutsche Bank AG in 2000 and was promoted to co- head of China investment banking in 2004. Lehman hired her the following year as head of China corporate finance. During her stints at Deutsche Bank and Lehman, she helped win work arranging share sales for Dongfeng Motor Group Co. and China Citic Bank Corp.

HSBC was hired to underwrite Bank of Communications Ltd.’s rights offer of as much as $6.15 billion, and won a role arranging the initial public offering of Swire Pacific Ltd.’s property unit this year, one of the people said.

Banker Departures

HSBC tried to expand its investment bank under co-heads Stuart Gulliver and John Studzinski as part of a five-year plan that started in 2003. Studzinski added about 1,400 people to the corporate and investment bank in 2005, increasing expenses and contributing to the unit’s decline in pretax earnings.

After Studzinski left in 2006, HSBC scaled back its ambitions to focus on a narrower range of securities services targeting emerging markets. Studzinski joined Blackstone Group LP and hired HSBC bankers including Zheng Jianping and Jing Xiaowen in 2008.

The U.K. bank lost senior bankers hired in Asia in 2007, including Asia CEO Michael Smith; Daniel Palmer, global head of capital markets; and Steven Wallace, Asia investment banking head. Smith became CEO of Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.

HSBC’s posted full-year net income of $5.83 billion, missing the $7.76 billion median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Pretax profit at the investment banking unit, led by Gulliver, more than tripled to $10.5 billion. It was the only among HSBC’s divisions to report a gain in profit.

The lender wants to raise more than $5 billion in Shanghai as China opens the exchange to foreign companies, people with knowledge of the matter said in August.

Deutsche Bank China head Zhang to join ICBC

Lee Zhang set to become ICBC’s vice president

* Zhang’s appointment subject to Beijing’s approval

* China wants influential Chinese to return to help SOEs

* Deutsche Bank shares up 0.3 pct in line with peers

(Adds sources’ quotes, more details, background)

By George Chen and Zhao Hongmei

SHANGHAI/BEIJING, March 19 (Reuters) – Lee Zhang, China head of Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE), Germany’s top lender, is set to take a senior role at Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (1398.HK), according to people familiar with the matter.

The sources said the appointment is expected to receive final government approval in the next few weeks, part of Beijing’s plan to attract influential Chinese away from leading Western firms to drive expansion inside major state-owned enterprises.

Zhang has been in talks for several months with senior Chinese government officials and the management of ICBC.

“There will be more to come back as Beijing is eager to push the trend,” said one of the sources.

“It does make sense for big enterprises like ICBC. You are already the No. 1 in the world (by market value) and of course you also need No. 1 talent to work for you,” he added.

The departure is a blow for the Frankfurt-based lender which in December unveiled ambitious profit targets to reach 10 billion euros in pretax profit by 2011, in part based on its ability to drive revenue growth in Asia.

Deutsche wants to raise revenues in Asia Pacific excluding Japan to around 4 billion euros by 2011 from around 2.1 billion euros in 2008, mainly by focusing on organic growth. [ID:nWEA5547] [ID:nWEA5552]

Deutsche already has a joint venture in China with Zhong De Securities, with plans to reach a market share of 5 to 8 percent within three to five years. It recently raised its stake in Hua Xia Bank (600015.SS). [ID:nSHA137769] [ID:nSHA199464]

The sources said Beijing-based ICBC (601398.SS) agreed to hire Zhang as its vice president, but the appointment must be approved by the Organization Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, a process that could still take several weeks.

Sources at Deutsche Bank told Reuters that Zhang is still working in the bank this week. Spokesmen at ICBC and Deutsche Bank declined to comment on the matter. Zhang’s mobile phone went unanswered.

The sources declined to be identified because the hiring process is private and confidential.

WELCOME TO BEIJING

Zhang, a long-time banker for Western financial institutions, helped Deutsche Bank launch its investment banking joint venture in China, allowing the European lender to help Chinese clients underwrite shares and debt in fast-growing domestic markets.

Zhang, Group Chairman of Deutsche Bank China and Head of Global Banking Asia-Pacific excluding Japan, also helped Guangdong Development Bank, a mid-sized Chinese lender once in deep financial trouble, to strike a $3.1 billion deal with a Citigroup-led (C.N) consortium in a landmark foreign banking investment in China in 2006.

In Beijing, Zhang is already well known among top Chinese leaders since he is a delegate to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China’s top political advisory body.

As a CPPCC delegate, an honoured political status very rarely offered to Chinese people working for Western firms, Zhang has opportunities to meet top government leaders and regulators annually and submit proposals on a variety of issues. If his appointment is approved, Zhang would be the highest profile executive to be lured to a state-owned company under Beijing’s plan to lure top talent from Western banks.

Many Western banks were badly hit during the global financial crisis, and even influential bankers whose compensation has come under public scrutiny may be more open than previously to outside offers.

Meanwhile, China’s fast economic growth has helped big banks such as ICBC grow even more and they are now ambitious for global expansion, providing opportunities for veterans such as Zhang.

Last week, Fred Hu, a high-profile Chinese dealmaker, stepped down as a partner of Goldman Sachs (GS.N) after 13 years with the firm to launch a new private equity fund with help from China Construction Bank (0939.HK) (601939.SS), another of the Big Four state lenders, and other parties. [ID:nTOE6290BD]

China Mobile Fires Vice Chairman for ‘Irregularities’

Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) — China Mobile Ltd. fired Vice Chairman Zhang Chunjiang from the world’s largest phone carrier by market value citing “alleged serious financial irregularities.”

Zhang was voted off China Mobile’s board at a meeting of its members yesterday, according to a company statement that gave no details of allegations against him. The latest edition of Caijing Magazine reported the former executive was being investigated for falsifying earnings and hiding losses while he was an executive at another Chinese telecom company.

Zhang was ousted from parent China Mobile Communications Corp. after a Xinhua News Agency report Dec. 26 said the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China, the nation’s main anti-corruption body, had made him the subject of an investigation over an unspecified “serious disciplinary breach.” His firing will not affect China Mobile’s operations, said Peter Ho, an analyst at Quam Ltd. in Hong Kong.

“I think Zhang’s going will have little impact on the company,” said Ho, an analyst at Quam Ltd. in Hong Kong. “The company has a good management team in place and he is not a key member.”

A China Mobile spokeswoman in Hong Kong, Rainie Lei, declined to discuss the nature of the “economic issues” faced by Zhang beyond saying they won’t affect the company.

Shares in China Mobile rose 1.6 percent to close at HK$74.45 in Hong Kong trading, extending gains made since the corruption investigation was announced to 6.7 percent. The benchmark Hang Seng index, which rose 0.1 percent today, has advanced 3.8 percent in the same period.

Under Scrutiny

Zhang was under scrutiny by the commission for possible misdealing at China Netcom Group Corp. before he joined China Mobile, Beijing-based Caijing said without saying where it got its information. Zhang could not be reached through the main line of the company’s Hong Kong office.

Netcom may have overstated its profit by 20 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) cumulatively before Zhang left the company in 2008, the Jan. 4 issue of the magazine said. The matter was uncovered by China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. according to the report. Sophia Tso, a spokeswoman for China Unicom, which took over Netcom as part of a government revamp of the telecom sector in 2008, declined to comment on the report.

The former executive, aged 51 according to Caijing, was removed from his posts as Communist Party secretary and vice- president at China Mobile Communications, Hong Kong-listed China Mobile said in an e-mailed statement Dec. 31.

Zhang was named Communist Party secretary at China Mobile Communications in May 2008, when the government ordered the country’s six biggest phone carriers to merge in a reorganization aimed at boosting competition.

Senior Position

The post gave him a more senior position in the state-owned company’s hierarchy than chief executive Wang Jianzhou, industry consultant Duncan Clark said Dec. 30.

Before his tenure at Netcom, Zhang was director of telecommunications administration at the Ministry of Information Industry.

China Mobile Communications owns 74.3 percent of the Hong Kong-listed carrier, which named Zhang as its vice-chairman in June 2008 following his appointment at the parent company.

The probe won’t “materially impact” China Mobile’s business given Zhang’s short tenure at the company, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts Helen Zhu and Lucy Liu wrote in a Dec. 27 report.

Google Executive to Quit

Google Inc. announced that Kai-Fu Lee, president of Google Inc.’s China operations, is resigning from the company after working for years to establish the Internet giant as a formidable player in the country.

Mr. Lee will be succeeded by two Google executives, the company said. Boon-Lock Yeo, currently director of Google’s Shanghai engineering office, will run engineering for Google China. John Liu, who currently leads Google’s sales team in greater China, will assume Mr. Lee’s business and operational responsibilities.

Mr. Lee left Microsoft Corp. to join Google in 2005 to develop the company’s operations in China, where Google was later than some of its rivals to establish a beachhead.

Mr. Lee’s hiring kicked off a legal battle between Microsoft and Google. Microsoft, alleging Mr. Lee violated his employment contract, filed suit against Google. Google countersued, accusing Microsoft of “a shocking display of hubris,” according to court documents. The companies settled privately in 2005.

Google said Mr. Lee is leaving to work on his own venture. “With a very strong leadership team in place, it seemed a very good moment for me to move to the next chapter in my career,” Mr. Lee said in a statement.

During Mr. Lee’s tenure, usage of Google products, including its search service, has grown among Chinese users. The company has also launched some products unique to the market, including an online music service. In announcing Mr. Lee’s departure, Google said it was nearly doubling the size of its sales force in China in response to strong growth.

But Google continues to confront a range of headaches in China, which, as the country with the largest number of Internet users, is critical to its growth. Google still trails Chinese search leader Baidu by a wide margin. In the second quarter of 2009, Google drew around 20% of Chinese Internet searches, compared with Baidu’s 76%, according to iResearch, an Internet research concern

Google has also continued to clash with Chinese authorities, who have selectively blocked services such as its video-sharing site, YouTube.

Peng Wang Named Scientific Chief Of Simcere Pharmaceutical

May 19, 2009 (FinancialWire) — Simcere Pharmaceutical Group (NYSE: SCR | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) has appointed Peng Wang as its chief scientific officer.

Wang most recently served as VP of discovery biology at WuXi PharmaTech (NYSE: WX). Before that he was a research fellow at Schering-Plough’s (NYSE: SGP) research institute, where he worked for eighteen years.

In his new role, Wang will lead Simcere’s research team in developing new products and research projects. He will also participate in the strategic planning of the R&D department and manage domestic and international research collaborations.

Nanjing, China-based Simcere Pharmaceutical is a manufacturer and supplier of branded generic and original pharmaceuticals in China. Simcere manufactures and sells antibiotics, anti-cancer medication and stroke management medication.

Simcere concentrates its research and development efforts on the treatment of diseases such as cancer, strokes, orthopaedics and infectious diseases.

McDonald’s names new China chief executive

BEIJING, March 3 (Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp (MCD.N) on Monday named Kenneth Chan as its new chief executive officer in China, replacing Jeffrey Schwartz, the company said in a statement.

Chan, a Singaporean, has been with McDonald’s for 12 years, most recently acting as regional manager in Malaysia, Taiwan and Korea, and managing director of its restaurants in Singapore.

Schwartz, a 40-year McDonald’s veteran, will retire from the company, the statement said. (Reporting by Michael Wei; Editing by Ken Wills)

Biz moves

Hand joins LaSalle

David Hand has been promoted as investment head for China in Jones Lang LaSalle after seven years as managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle Beijing and head of the China Retail Business. Hand said he expects to leverage the strong relations he and the Pan-China Investments teams have had with local and international developers and investors to facilitate transactions between these groups in China.

Sang is Lafarge CEO

French cement and building materials manufacturer Lafarge SA has appointed Sang Kang as chief executive officer in place of Cyrille Ragoucy, who was previously in charge of its business expansion in China. Ragoucy is returning to the company’s French headquarters where he will take up a new position. Sang jointed Lafarge in 2003 after working for several years with Boston Consulting Group as partner and board director.

Ford new Starwood VP

Starwood Asia Pacific Hotels and Resorts has appointed Stephen Ford as vice-president and area managing director for South China, and general manager of Sheraton Sanya Resort. Ford has more than 40 years of management and work experience in the hospitality industry. Prior to this he was Starwood’s regional vice-president for India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. Ford joined Starwood in 2001 as general manager of the Westin Bund Center, Shanghai.

WuXi CFO steps down

WuXi PharmaTech has said Benson Tsang, chief financial officer, is leaving the company for personal reasons at the end of this month. Edward Hu, chief operating officer, will act as acting CFO until a replacement is found. Tsang joined WuXi PharmaTech in 2006 as CFO.

The company’s board has formed a search committee to recruit a new CFO. Tsang has agreed to provide transition services and to assist in recruiting his successor.

Unicom appoints Lu

China Unicom has appointed Lu Yimin as president, while Chang Xiaobing will continue to act as chairman and CEO, effective Feb 13. Zuo Xunsheng, Li Jianguo, Pei Aihua, Zhao Jidong, Li Fushen, Li Gang, Zhang Jun’an and Jiang Zhengxin were appointed senior vice-presidents of the company. Lu Yimin and Zuo Xunsheng remain as company executive directors.

The appointment signals the closing of the Unicom-Netcom merger.

McQuillan named GM

British Airways has appointed Kevin McQuillan as its regional general manager for the Far East with effect from March 2. Based in Hong Kong, McQuillan will be responsible for the airline’s commercial interests on the mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Philippines.

Linktone fills COO, CFO posts; Guptha joins board amid resignations

NEW YORK, Apr. 21, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) — Linktone (NASDAQ:LTON) Ltd. Monday named Anthony Chia chief operating officer and Jimmy Lai chief financial officer.

The Shanghai, China-based company also named Muliawan Guptha to its board while announcing the resignation of five other directors – Colin Sung, Elaine La Roche, Allan Kwan, Agus Mulyanto and Sutanto Hartono. Each left because of ‘personal reasons and other professional commitments,’ Linktone said.

Chia most recently served as senior advisor to PT Media Nusantara Citra Tbk (OOTC:PTMEF) , which is Linktone’s controlling shareholder.

Lai most recently worked as chief financial officer of Palm Commerce Holdings.

Shares of the provider of wireless interactive entertainment services rose 3% to $2.38 in late trades.

Baidu got Apple’s China chief for COO role

HONG KONG, April 2 (Reuters) – Baidu.com Inc (BIDU.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has poached Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) former China head for the role of chief operating officer, the latest high-level executive shuffle at China’s largest search engine firm.

Peng Ye, who oversaw all business operations in China for Apple as the U.S. firm’s country general manager, joins Baidu on the heels of the appointment of ex-General Motors (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) executive Jennifer Li to the post of chief financial officer. [ID:nSHA340039]

Ye’s posting takes effect April 25.

Baidu maintains an edge over Google Inc (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) as the most popular search engine in the world’s No. 2 Internet arena. China had 210 million Internet users at the end of 2007, second only to the United States, and that Web population is set to become the world’s largest in 2008.

Sina Chairman Yongji Duan Exits Board

NEW YORK – Chinese Internet portal operator Sina Corp. said Monday that its board chairman, Yongji Duan, departed from the board, effective immediately.

Duan is no longer a director and is also no longer on the company’s compensation committee.

The company did not disclose a reason for Duan’s departure.

Sina said it named the Yan Wang, who had been the vice chairman of its board, as acting chairman, effective immediately.

Sina shares fell 49 cents to $35.03 in afternoon trading.