Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on July 15, 2019 - July 21, 2019

VETERAN investment banker Datuk Maimoonah Hussain will be retiring from Affin Hwang Capital later this year after 13 years with the Affin group, say sources.

Maimoonah, 60, is the group managing director of Affin Hwang Capital, under which the Affin group’s investment banking, securities and asset management businesses fall. She is also the group managing director of the investment banking business, Affin Hwang Investment Bank Bhd.

“She asked for an early release. She will be leaving in November,” a source familiar with the matter tells The Edge.

It is understood that she is leaving earlier than expected for personal reasons.

Kit Weng Yip, who recently resigned as Nomura Holdings’ investment banking head for Malaysia, is understood to be the top contender to replace Maimoonah. His appointment is, however, subject to Bank Negara Malaysia’s approval.

According to sources, he is expected to join Affin Hwang Capital as deputy group managing director first, in September or October.

Kit has over two decades of investment banking experience. Prior to joining Nomura in 2014 as executive director and head of investment banking, he was at RHB Investment Bank Bhd as director of corporate and investment banking services. He has also worked at CIMB Investment Bank Bhd.

Maimoonah was appointed as managing director of Affin Investment Bank Bhd in 2007. In 2013, the Affin group acquired HwangDBS Investment Bank Bhd and some of the Hwang-DBS group’s other businesses.

The acquisition, which Maimoonah oversaw, was completed in April 2014. Affin Investment Bank and HwangDBS Investment Bank were then merged, which led to the creation of Affin Hwang Capital in September 2014.

Maimoonah, who joined the Affin group in 2006, was previously the head of syndications at Standard Chartered Bank, where she saw to the debt syndications business for Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. She was also seconded to Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia Bhd for three years to develop the local and cross-border debt business.

Maimoonah is the second investment bank head to be retiring this year. CIMB Investment Bank CEO Datuk Kong Sooi Lin, 58, retired in March after having been with the group for more than 25 years. Her deputy, Jefferi M Hashim, took over the role.

In another prominent move, RHB Bank Bhd group chief strategy and transformation officer Gan Pai Li, who left the bank recently, will be joining rival Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd as head of consumer banking, according to sources.

The previous head of consumer banking, Suparman Kusuma, had left the group earlier this year.

“She (Gan) should be joining Alliance in August,” an industry source tells The Edge.

Gan had been with RHB since September 2017. Prior to that, she was with CIMB Investment Bank as a senior managing director.

Meanwhile, Affin Hwang Investment Bank reported a slightly lower net profit after zakat and tax of RM133.48 million in the financial year ended Dec 31, 2018 (FY2018), compared with RM143.82 million the year before. This was due to it being a more challenging year, following weaker market conditions and investor sentiment, impacted largely by geopolitical concerns.

In the first quarter of this year, though, it saw its net profit after zakat and tax move up 6% year on year to RM34.67 million. The investment banking business contributed RM21.7 million to pre-tax profit while the asset management business contributed RM25.3 million.

It had total assets of RM9.03 billion as at end-March.

 

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