Citi hires two senior UBS Asia bankers for China, EMEA roles

By Julie Zhu and Sumeet Chatterjee

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Two senior bankers working for UBS Group AG in Asia have left to join Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C), adding to other top bankers who have left the Swiss bank in the region in the last few months.

Jiang Guorong, who has been with UBS for about three years and was its head of China investment banking and vice-chairman of Asia investment banking, has left to join Citi as chairman and head of the bank's China corporate and investment banking, according to a memo sent to Citigroup staff and seen by Reuters.

Guorong is likely to start his role at Citi in September this year. A Citi spokesman in Hong Kong confirmed the content of the memo.

Separately, Citi on Thursday said it had hired Alison Harding-Jones, UBS's head of Asia Pacific M&A, as its new head of EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) M&A and vice-chairman of EMEA corporate and investment banking.

In her new role, Harding-Jones, who worked at UBS for 28 years, will focus on expanding M&A market share across the EMEA sectors and countries. She will move from Hong Kong to London, a Citi statement said.

"With her long track record of building successful M&A practices... she will be a strong asset to our team and a key part of our growth strategy," Raymond McGuire, global head of corporate and investment banking at Citi, said.

UBS has had a number of senior level departures in Asia in the last six months.

In May, UBS lost three senior investment bankers, including its deputy head of China, Cheng Wang, who is due to join Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) in August as vice chairman of investment banking in Asia Pacific.

Joseph Chee, one of UBS' top dealmakers in Asia, who was the go-to banker for Chinese state and private companies seeking to raise funds in Hong Kong and the United States, left in January to set up his own fund.

In December last year, Damien Brosnan, co-head of Asia ECM at UBS, left the bank only seven months after taking up that position.

UBS said in an internal note to staff on Thursday Samson Lo, its co-head of Asia M&A, will now become the head of that business. It also named Greg Peirce and Pei Shen Chou as co-heads of its M&A advisory business in Asia Pacific.

UBS was a powerhouse in Asia equity capital markets and along with Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS), it dominated the league tables from 2002. But in the past two years its performance has suffered as Chinese investment banks made inroads.

(Reporting by Julie Zhu, Yan Jiang and Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Jane Merriman)

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