Citi bolsters ECM

Citigroup has appointed Jason Son Hwang as a director in its ECM team covering Korea. He will rank as one of two directors in the group alongside Matthew Whittell who covers South East Asia from Singapore.

Hwang joins Citi from JPMorgan where he has been a vice president in ECM since 2001. Prior to that he worked in New York and Hong Kong in DCM and the asset backed securities group.

He joins a team that has seen a number of changes in recent months. Craig Duffy came over from ING late last year as a managing director. He joined fellow MD's Willy Liu, who covers Greater China and syndicate head Kirsty Mactaggart, who embarks on five months leave next week before returning to Asia towards the end of September.

All three MD's report to David Ratliff, Citi's Tokyo-based head of Asian equities and Tyler Dickson, global head of ECM.

Citi has one of the largest and strongest ECM teams in Asia, which makes it ideal poaching ground for other banks that have begun re-staffing as markets get stronger. At the beginning of March, VP Udhay Furtado left the group to join Deutsche Bank where he is now covering origination for South East Asia. Two VPs remain - Serena Wallace Turner and Will Li.