What Katie did next

Her re-location also reflects the bank's efforts to bolster its position in Singapore where product personnel have been increased under the guidance of its energetic and loquacious ceo Michael Dee, who ran DCM in Hong Kong until the end of last year. Richdale becomes the DCM point person for South East Asia, alongside John Maclaine who has been serving in a similar ECM capacity for the past six months.

However, as Richdale is a fluent Mandarin speaker, she will not be giving up China coverage, but will be handing over Hong Kong coverage and with it what many regard as the poisoned chalice of a mandate to re-finance PCCW's loan obligations in the bond markets. DCM head Bob Voreyer will take over Hong Kong, in turn handing over coverage responsibilities for Malaysia and Thailand to Richdale.

Max Blandon, meanwhile, will continue to oversee Korea and the Philippines.  

Richdale has been at Morgan Stanley for just over a year and prior to that worked in DCM at JPMorgan.