Barclays, BNP Paribas shuffle equity teams

Barclays and BNP Paribas Securities have made senior appointments for their equities trading businesses.

Dan Miller has joined Barclays as head of equities sales trading for Hong Kong, China and Asean. He had been global head of execution sales at BNP Paribas, but left in September, having been with the firm since 2009. BNP Paribas has replaced him, but as of press time had not returned requests for the incumbent's name.

Miller’s role is newly created – Barclays covered these markets previously, but didn’t have a nominated head of sales trading overseeing them.

He reports to Robin Newman, head of equities distribution for Asia ex-Japan and global emerging markets, and is responsible for developing Barclays’ low- and high-touch execution capabilities.

The UK bank added to its team to complement its existing sales trading capabilities in India, Taiwan and Korea.

Before working at BNP Paribas, Miller did stints at Deutsche Bank, Barings Securities and Indosuez WI Carr.

BNP Paribas declined to comment on whether he has been or will be replaced.

Meanwhile, the French bank has promoted three senior members of its cash equity team and is looking to hire more senior equity sales managers following recent departures. It is understood the appointments were announced internally and took effect May 13.

Ken Chen was promoted to deputy head of cash equity for Asia Pacific from head of equity research for Asia Pacific. He is now responsible for research and sales advisory functions.

His expanded role fills the gap left by the departure on May 13 of Stephen Carney, who was global head of equity sales for Asia Pacific. Carney joined BNP Paribas in June 2010, according to his LinkedIn profile, but AsianInvestor could not ascertain his current whereabouts.

Chen has been with BNP Paribas since 2010 and also served for two years as CEO of BNP Paribas Taiwan Securities.

Before that he worked at UBS for five years, running its equities business and equity research team in Taiwan between 2005 and 2008 and latterly running its China A-share equities business until 2010. He has also worked at Deutsche Bank and CLSA.

Gabriel Chan has taken over Chen’s former role. Prior to joining BNP Paribas in June last year, he worked as a research analyst at Credit Suisse in Hong Kong.

Douglas Butcher joins the Hong Kong office from Tokyo in the newly created role of head of cash equity sales trading for Asia Pacific.

He had joined BNP Paribas in July 2011 as head of execution sales and equity execution. Prior to that, he was head of execution sales and equity execution at Merrill Lynch Japan Securities and a managing director at Morgan Stanley.

All three report to Lee Cook, head of cash equities for Asia Pacific.

Meanwhile, BNP Paribas is seeking replacements for Lee McQueen, Timothy Wong and Kevin Bilsby, who exited senior cash equity senior roles in April.

The bank’s chief executive, Jean-Laurent Bonnafé, in February announced further plans for expansion in Asia. It intends to hire 1,300 bankers over three years in the region. Plans include growing the group’s business in China and Indonesia, and increasing investment in Hong Kong and Singapore.