Banking News

Goldman Sachs appoints new Asia investment leadership

(23 October 2018 – Hong Kong) Goldman Sachs has announced Todd Leland as its investment banking head for Asia Pacific (ex-Japan) as the Bank’s two most senior Asia Pacific investment bankers, Andrea Vella and Kate Richdale, appointed co-heads of the unit in 2015, move out of their management roles but remain co-chairs of the unit.

The ripples from David Solomon's appointment as CEO continue to spread across Asia. The bank has not had a chairman for investment banking since Tim Freshwater left the role in 2011. Goldman has stated the transition from Lloyd Blankfein's 12-year reign to Mr Solomon's term will be one of evolution not revolution.

Leland was named a co-president of the bank for Asia Pacific excluding Japan in September last year, a designation that he will retain. Todd Leland will remain as co-president alongside James Paradise, who also leads the Asia Pacific securities division. Leland takes over at a time when China’s aggressive outbound push for mergers and acquisitions has slowed this year amid an escalating trade war with the United States, and weaker markets are expected to weigh on the appetite for new equity offerings. In the first nine months of 2018, Goldman’s revenue in Asia, which is smallest of its three regions, rose 9 percent to US$3.9 billion. Asia’s share of group sales fell by 1 percentage point to 14 percent in that period, its filings showed. Richdale, a fluent Mandarin speaker with experience in Southeast Asian deal making, joined Goldman from Morgan Stanley in March 2013. Before taking over the Asia leadership role, Vella had been co-head of the financing group in the region since January 2014. Prior to that he was head of credit capital markets in Asia excluding Japan.

Goldman also announced that Raghav Maliah, its head of the technology, media and telecom group in Asia Pacific (ex-Japan), will become global vice-chairman of the investment banking division. Among other executive changes since Solomon was named the group CEO, Goldman last month named Dan Dees, who heads the technology, media and telecom investment banking group globally, as investment banking co-chief. Dees will share his new title with Gregg Lemkau and Marc Nachmann. Dees’s promotion came about a week after Goldman elevated former investment banking co-head John Waldron to president and COO and named Stephen Scherr as its new CFO.