UK-headquartered Barclays, has announced the appointment of Hossein Zaimi as head of Markets for Asia Pacific. His appointment is effective May 16, a spokesperson for the bank told FinanceAsia.
Hong Kong-based Zaimi will be responsible for driving the firm’s APAC Markets business, reporting functionally to co-heads of Global Markets, Adeel Khan and Stephen Dainton, and regionally, to Jaideep Khanna, head of Barclays for Asia Pacific.
Zaimi replaces Matt Pecot, who the bank announced in March would retire from June. FA understands that Pecot has been on gardening leave, with Anthony Davies acting as interim head of Markets during this time. Earlier in March, Barclays also announced the appointments of Carrie Chen and Raymond Yu as co-heads of Investment Banking for China.
Zaimi was most recently global head of equities and global co-head of securities financing at HSBC, where he spent 17 years. His career has involved other positions at Crédit Lyonnais and Salmon Smith Barney.
The latest appointment is a testament to the significant investment that the bank is making to expand its franchise in the region, Dainton said in the announcement. He added that, “APAC is at the centre of our multi-year growth strategy for Global Markets.”
Barclays’s Q1 results, which published last month, showed that its Global Markets income had increased by 26%, to £2.7 million ($3.3 million). This was due to higher trading activity amid volatile markets, the investor presentation explained.
The bank’s income from Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) grew 10% year-on-year to £3.9 billion, in spite of investment banking fees falling 25% due to lower activity in equity capital markets.
The bank was little impacted by the war in Ukraine due to a lack of physical presence or undertakings in Russia, Ukraine or Belarus, and its “proactive risk management of modest exposures.”
Barclays declined to comment beyond the release on the opportunities that it was looking to address in APAC.
