Macquarie denies HK closure, moves in Korea
(Hong Kong/Seoul) - Australia's Macquarie Bank has denied reports it plans to close down its Asian equities business based in Hong Kong.
Macquarie Group Executive Director, Head of Equities Asia, Jonathan Coultas, said Macquarie was not closing its equities business in Hong Kong but was refocussing its Asian broking business.
"We are going through a refocus of the Asian business," Mr Coultas said.
"We are still keeping the capacity to execute into Hong Kong, however we are taking our Asian business and integrating it more into the Australian business...for instance offering Australian research to Asian investors."
He said the restructuring would involve a small number of redundancies in the research and sales areas in Hong Kong, but Macquarie would be seeking to redeploy those staff into other areas of the group.
Australian reports claimed Macquarie planned to close its Asian stock research division and cut back its equities sales staff there as a response to the prolonged slump in the share market, which has seen the main Hang Seng index fall more than 42 percent in the last year.
Meanwhile, Macquarie's new Korean infrastructure business continues to forge ahead, with the A$237 million purchase of toll road in the southern city of Kwangju.
The A$332 million fund is paying $64 million in equity for the road and using non-recourse debt to finance the balance of the total purchase price of $237 million.
The toll road, section one of the Kwangju second beltway, is the first of about five major road infrastructure investments in South Korea expected to be made by the fund over the next 18 months.
"We are going through a refocus of the Asian business," Mr Coultas said.
"We are still keeping the capacity to execute into Hong Kong, however we are taking our Asian business and integrating it more into the Australian business...for instance offering Australian research to Asian investors."
He said the restructuring would involve a small number of redundancies in the research and sales areas in Hong Kong, but Macquarie would be seeking to redeploy those staff into other areas of the group.
Australian reports claimed Macquarie planned to close its Asian stock research division and cut back its equities sales staff there as a response to the prolonged slump in the share market, which has seen the main Hang Seng index fall more than 42 percent in the last year.
Meanwhile, Macquarie's new Korean infrastructure business continues to forge ahead, with the A$237 million purchase of toll road in the southern city of Kwangju.
The A$332 million fund is paying $64 million in equity for the road and using non-recourse debt to finance the balance of the total purchase price of $237 million.
The toll road, section one of the Kwangju second beltway, is the first of about five major road infrastructure investments in South Korea expected to be made by the fund over the next 18 months.
Subscribe