Citi appoints new director of capital markets origination for Asia Pacific

Eric Au has been appointed director of capital markets Asia Pacific for Citi’s commercial bank.

In this new role, Au will partner with the bank’s teams across capital markets origination (CMO), corporate and investment banking (CIB) and commercial banking (CCB) to drive further growth in capital markets financing opportunities for Citi’s commercial banking clients.

Au joins from Standard Chartered where he was executive director head of client solutions Asia and will report to Ken Poon, head of capital markets origination for Citi in Asia and Rajat Madhok, Citi’s commercial banking middle market head for Asia. Prior to Standard Chartered Au was with the Royal Bank of Scotland/ABN AMRO for seven years and where he was head of South China local corporate coverage. Au continues to be based in Hong Kong.

“Commercial banking clients are increasingly turning towards the capital markets to fund their growth. With Citi’s global network and distribution capabilities, the bank is ideally positioned to support this growth and support the development of these corporate champions of tomorrow. This is a strategic priority for Citi’s growth in Asia and we are confident under Eric’s leadership we can build on the momentum we have in this important area,” says Poon.

“Across Asia we are seeing increased opportunities to support our commercial banking clients in Asia. A key area includes identifying opportunities to raise capital to support these companies as they look to expand by raising capital across equity, bond and loan markets. I am confident Eric, in partnership with the CMO, CIB and CCB teams can ensure Citi is in the middle of these transactions and build further on the success we have had to date,” adds Madhok.

The CCB has a footprint that spans 10 countries in Asia — China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, India, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam and has over 27,000 clients in the region. Typical clients include importers/exporters, companies with cross-border needs and buyers/suppliers to Citi’s large corporate clients. In the last 12 months, Citi’s commercial bank has added over 100 bankers to support clients.

The bank has raised over US$100 billion in the last 12 months for its clients across Asia from capital markets. These included important transaction for commercial banking clients including Hong Kong IPOs for Luye Pharma’s and Beijing Digital’s IPO and a follow-on offering in India for Make-My Trip.

The Asset