Hongchoy joins DBS

DBS has recruited George Hongchoy to be the head of its unit called DBS Asia Capital. Hongchoy will run the bank's North Asian ECM and M&A businesses. He will be based in Hong Kong.

He joins the Singaporean bank from NM Rothschild & Sons where has was for a year. While at Rothschild he began by running the diversified industries group, before taking on the mantle of the financial industries group. Before Rothschild, he was an MD at JPMorgan, which bought Jardine Fleming, where Hongchoy started his career in 1992.

At DBS he will be reporting geographically to Frank Wong who has overall responsibility for wholesale banking, and to Water Cheung who heads treasury and capital markets in North Asia.

On the product side, he will report to Kan Shik Lum, head of ECM origination and Eric Ang, co-head of global financial markets. Both are based in Singapore.

Over the last year DBS has run the books on two China IPOs, one for sports ware company Li Ning in June, and one this October for China Force Oil & Grains Industrial. Hongchoy says he is looking to build on this growing track record in the mid cap Chinese consumer sector. He is also looking to do deals for Taiwanese-owned mainland companies looking to list in Hong Kong, so called T chips.

"Werre excited about George's appointment as it represents the bank's commitment to grow our capital markets' activities in North Asia," says Water Cheung in an internal announcement to staff.