Goldman Sachs Group Inc's veteran banker Todd Leland will become Asia investment banking head, a person with knowledge of the matter said on Sunday, adding to leadership changes at the bank since Chief Executive Officer David Solomon took over this month. In the new role, Leland, an American who joined Goldman in 1992, will replace Andrea Vella and Kate Richdale as the head of the Asia investment banking unit excluding Japan. Vella and Richdale were appointed co-heads of the unit in 2015.
Vella and Richdale will remain in Asia to become the co-chairs of the unit, said the person, who declined to be named as the move has not been made public yet. A spokeswoman for Goldman declined to comment. Leland was named a co-president of the bank for Asia Pacific excluding Japan in September last year, after having previously worked in London for 10 years.
He takes over at a time when China's aggressive outbound push for mergers and acquisitions has slowed this year amid an escalating trade war with the United States, and weaker markets are expected to weigh on the appetite for new equity offerings. In the first nine months of 2018, Goldman's revenue in Asia, which is smallest of its three regions, rose 9 percent to $3.9 billion. Asia's share of group sales fell by 1 percentage point to 14 percent in that period, its filings showed.
Richdale, a fluent Mandarin speaker with experience in Southeast Asian dealmaking, joined Goldman from Morgan Stanley in March 2013. Before taking over the Asia leadership role, Vella had been co-head of the financing group in the region since January 2014. Prior to that he was head of credit capital markets in Asia excluding Japan. Among other executive changes since Solomon was named the group chief executive, Goldman last month named Dan Dees, who heads the technology, media and telecom investment banking group globally, as investment banking co-chief.
Dees will share his new title with Gregg Lemkau and Marc Nachmann. Dees's promotion came about a week after Goldman elevated former investment banking co-head John Waldron to president and chief operating officer and named Stephen Scherr as its new finance chief. The Wall Street Journal first reported the Asia leadership changes at Goldman on Saturday.
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