HSBC hires Evercore’s Hong to lead Singapore deals coverage

BLOOMBERG

HSBC Holdings Plc has hired Alex Hong from Evercore Inc to lead the bank’s dealmaking efforts in Singapore.
Hong, who has been at Evercore for almost a decade, is set to join HSBC in September, a spokesperson for the UK lender confirmed in response to a Bloomberg News query. He will report to Sandeep Pahwa, head of investment banking for South and Southeast Asia.
A representative for Evercore didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Before joining Evercore, Hong was with Greenhill & Co in Australia, according to his LinkedIn profile. He also taught accounting and finance at the University of Western Australia for a year.
A slump in dealmaking globally has prompted Wall Street firms to downsize their investment banking operations, leading to thousands of job cuts. The government-brokered takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS Group AG also spurred a slew of departures. Deutsche Bank AG and
Jefferies Financial Group Inc are among those that seized the opportunity and scaled up their presence in Asia with hiring sprees. HSBC last year tapped Christopher Chua from Credit Suisse to help oversee the Asia mergers and acquisitions business. The bank also hired Pahwa from Barclays Plc, and Michael Willoughby from Standard Chartered Plc as global head of metals, mining and transition materials.
The lender has been scaling up in key markets, Pahwa said in HSBC’s response to Bloomberg News.
In Singapore, HSBC opened a new headquarters in November as Chief Executive Officer Noel Quinn called the city-state a “critical” market for Europe’s biggest bank.