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“I have been given a strong mandate and that provides me with a high level of comfort” |
At first glance Surachet Chaipatamanont seems an unlikely person to head Aseambankers, the investment banking arm of Maybank, Malaysia’s largest bank and one of its better managed GLCs. As a Thai national, who had previously spent his entire career working for US investment banks (and most recently for himself), Chaipatamanont is an outsider to Malaysian banking. In a country where government policy is often geared towards promoting the interests of ethnic Malays, it was a progressive move from Maybank’s board to appoint Chaipatamanont. It could yet turn out to be very smart too. Although he is a relative newcomer to Malaysia, the softly spoken 38-year-old cuts an impressive figure. Indeed Maybank, which holds a 94.69% stake in Aseambankers, had to work hard to convince him to join. The bank initially approached him last year when he was running his own boutique covering debt restructuring opportunities in India and China.