Laidlaw departs Hong Kong for Macquarie Bank

Jardine Fleming veteren Roy Laidlaw has taken up the post of executive director and managing director of Macquarie Bank's institutional stockbroking business in Sydney.

Prior to making the shift back to Australia where he has lived before, Laidlaw had been managing director and head of cash equities for Asia ex-Japan at JPMorgan. Based in Hong Kong he oversaw a business which generated $300 million in annual revenue and employed 750 staff.

Laidlaw is an old Asia hand and began his career with Jardine Fleming back in 1986. Prior to the merger with JPMorgan, he was chief operating officer of Jardine Fleming Securities and also did a long stint as president director of Jardine Fleming's Indonesian operations. There he covered corporate finance, stockbroking and funds management.

At Macquarie he will be responsible for running the bank's global stockbroking business including sales and research. He takes over from Mark Bennett who left the firm earlier this year.

Making the announcement about his shift to Macquarie, the Aussie investment bank said: "Roy's international experience in running a successful regional specialist broker and managing the inter-relationship between sales, research and corporate finance will be invaluable to the continuing growth of our business and to the quality of our service to our clients."

Laidlaw took up his new post in Sydney on Wednesday this week and is reporting to Macquarie Bank's head of investment banking, Nicholas Moore.