WHEN Mark Evans moved into Goldman Sachs in London as a graduate from Oxford University, even this high-flying young Canadian, could hardly have expected to find himself in one of the hottest seats in the bank before he was 40.
This week, Mr Evans was named the successor to Moses Tsang as chairman at Goldman Sachs (Asia) - a hard act to follow, say Hong Kong bankers. Around him other Goldman Sachs staff were stepping out - local casualties of the global decline in the fortunes of investment banking and broking houses.
The bank has put no numbers on the level of staff changes in Hong Kong, but in an industry in which rubbishing the rivals is an evening entertainment, there has been gleeful anticipation that a lot of the dreaded pink slips will be handed out.
Mr Evans stays with his line that, of course, there will be shifts - in and out, but he and his senior executives will give no room to suggestions that Goldman Sachs will bear out mischievous predictions that US banks will prove fair weather friends to Hong Kong.
The abrupt, but temporary, retreat of Morgan Stanley Asia from institutional equity dealing in 1991 still provides ammunition for the theories that quarterly earnings reports in New York drive decisions - although anyone who puts that idea to Jack Wadsworth, head of MS in Asia, had better have a thick skin and a good memory for the statistics he will produce to prove the banks' current commitment to the region.
Mr Evans dismisses as fatuous the idea of anyone of substance pulling out of the Asian market.