Kenneth Courtis, a top Goldman Sachs executive and economist who had a controversial role as an independent non-executive director of China's dominant offshore oil producer CNOOC, is expected to leave the United States investment bank at the end of next month.
Mr Courtis, a vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia, will leave the bank and set up consultancy Ken Courtis and Associates, according to an internal email sent to the investment bank's employees yesterday.
His departure is set to cause a stir in Asia's tightly knit investment banking community where he was already high-profile. His role with CNOOC, which failed in its bid to acquire US oil firm Unocal Corp, made media headlines.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal last year, CNOOC postponed the submission of a planned US$16.7 billion bid for Unocal in March last year because of Mr Courtis' opposition, even though the US investment bank is CNOOC's adviser and had pledged to finance the takeover bid.
Mr Courtis had wanted more time to study the plan, the paper quoted CNOOC advisers as saying.
The delay wiped out the first mover advantage of CNOOC, which began discussions with Unocal executives earlier than rivals Chevron Corp and ENI of Italy.