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Ren may head BNP investment banking biz in China

(China Daily/Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-15 11:41

Margaret Ren

Margaret Ren, the former investment banking chairwoman of Merrill Lynch & Co China is set to join BNP Paribas SA to manage its advisory business in China, two people familiar with the situation said.

Ren would be the chairwoman and chief executive officer of investment banking for Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, one of the people said, asking not to be identified before an announcement.

BNP Paribas, France's biggest bank, has been trying to boost revenue by diversifying its strategy of focusing on small- to mid-cap firms. Ren, who plans to start before September, will try to win business from Chinese State-owned companies that are considering share sales or acquisitions, the sources said.

"BNP is probably going after clients that Ren could offer, and her focus on State-owned enterprises and government privatization mandates would be ideal to the business," said Terence Ho, senior consultant at ALS International, a Hong Kong-based executive search firm.

BNP Paribas has so far arranged one Chinese share sale this year. The French bank pulled out of a three-year-old investment banking venture with China's Changjiang Securities Co in January 2007 after disagreeing on strategy.

Ren would be the senior-most investment banking hire in China for BNP Paribas, whose ranking among banks that managed Chinese companies' overseas share sales tumbled to 18th this year from eighth a year ago, data compiled by Bloomberg show. She helped advise Blackstone Group LP on its acquisition of a 20-percent stake in China National BlueStar Group Corp in 2007.

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Ren, 50, has a master's degree in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She had worked at Bear Stearns & Co for nine years before joining Citigroup Inc in 2001 and Merrill six years later. The investment banking veteran lost out on a few mandates in the past two years partly due to potential conflicts of clients' interests while at Merrill, two people familiar said. Merrill was bought by Bank of America Corp this year.

BNP Paribas's investment banking business in China has suffered after several ex-Peregrine Investments executives, including Henry Cai, left since 2006. The bank took over Peregrine as its Asia ex-Japan investment banking and securities arm in 1998 and dropped the Peregrine brand in September 2006.

The final employment contract for the Hong Kong-based role hasn't been signed, the person said.

Christian de Charnace, BNP Paribas's Hong Kong-based head of corporate finance for Asia-Pacific, declined to comment.