New DCM syndicate head for ABN AMRO

ABN AMRO has appointed Herman van den Wall Bake to the newly created position of head of Asian debt capital markets syndicate. He will be based in Singapore and form part of ABN's financial markets business.

Van den Wall Bake is returning to the embrace of the Dutch bank having spent the last two years obtaining his MBA from Insead. He was previously head of emerging markets debt syndicate for Latin America based at ABN's US headquarters in New York.

In his new role he will report to James St Johnston, global head of DCM syndicate and to David Wong, head of financial markets for South and Southeast Asia. He will also work closely with his comrades on the origination side, in particular Choo Hak Lee, head of Asian DCM origination, and on the trading side with Simon Johnson, head of Asian credit trading.

He rejoins ABN at a time when the bank has some wind in its sails. ABN is making a concerted effort to rejoin the top tier of invetsment banks in Asia and has already had marked success in the Asian debt arena. In the last year it did deals for a number of Korean gencos, Unilever Thai Trading, Maxis Holdings and Toyota Motor Credit Corp, as well as a groundbreaking Taiwanese dollar bond for the European Investment Bank. And the bank is looking to increase its presence in the ongoing development of the local bond markets throughout the region.