Bankers tossed out of jobs in last year's emerging markets crisis should now be brushing off their CVs. Quietly and cautiously banks are rebuilding their emerging markets teams - primarily in Asian and Latin American equities - in the hope that this year's momentum in the asset class will be sustained. ING Barings which was heavily criticized for radically downsizing a tip-top team is leading the way back.
According to investment bankers in Asia, ING Barings has been on the most aggressive hiring spree in the region. The bank has made eight key appointments to its Asian research and economic departments so far this year, including new heads of research for Korea and Taiwan in July and filling five senior research positions in March. The position in Seoul is head of equity sales, trading and research and is a new post.
The latest move in rebuilding its Asia business was the appointment of Markus Rosgen as Asian equity strategist in August. Rosgen, previously with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, distinguished himself as one of the first strategists to turn bullish on Asia by increasing the weightings of Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand in Morgan Stanley's model portfolios as early as November 1998.