Goldman Sachs says Sung Hsueh and Rajiv Ghatalia will take over as co-heads of investment banking in Asia, excluding Japan, from Michael Carr, who will return to New York in June.
The appointments were announced yesterday in an internal e-mail to staff in the investment banking division and confirmed by Goldman spokesman Eddie Naylor, who only two weeks ago denied Mr Carr would be returning soon to New York.
Mr Naylor said that at the time he did not expect the news to be released until June and therefore could not confirm Mr Carr's plans.
Mr Carr has been in Asia since October 2000 and has played a key role in developing relationships with many of the bank's top clients in the region, including Hutchison Whampoa and Cheung Kong (Holdings).
Goldman's three heads of investment banking, Chris Cole, Scott Kapnick and John Weinberg, and Asia president Richard Gnodde praised Mr Carr's contribution to the business.
'Managing the business through extraordinarily challenging markets, Michael put in place successful new leadership in [South] Korea, Singapore and Australia. He has guided the team to league table dominance in both merger and equities products,' they said in the e-mail.