HSBC Commercial Banking has appointed Sheldon Wong as the head of its expanding middle market financial sponsors (MMFS) team in Asia-Pacific, aiming to capitalise on the region’s growing level of mergers and acquisitions.
As head of MMFS Asia-Pacific, Wong will build on the success of HSBC’s MMFS South-East Asia unit, which he has led from Singapore since the six-strong team’s formation in January 2016.
In his new role he will manage and hire specialist bankers in leveraged and acquisition finance to support mid-size financial sponsors that raise local, regional or global private equity funds ranging from USD250 million to USD3 billion, and that seek to acquire companies with enterprise values from USD50 million to USD500 million.
Wong says: “Strengthening our support to mid-sized private equity investors will enable more of our clients to invest in great companies across the Asia-Pacific region, which in turn will help those companies grow faster. Given the growth in the number of private equity transactions in this region over the last few years, and how many of those deals involved mid-market financial sponsors, we see an exciting opportunity for our customers and for HSBC.”
The new MMFS team will be responsible for coordinating the coverage, origination and execution of middle market, private equity-led transactions across the region. It will work closely with HSBC Structured Banking teams in each market and with other MMFS teams globally.
Wong has over 20 years’ experience in corporate and investment banking in Europe and Asia-Pacific, and joined HSBC in June 2014 as head of structured banking in Singapore. Prior to HSBC, he worked in Hong Kong for 10 years as head of leveraged & acquisition finance Asia-Pacific for Unicredit.
The global MMFS business has teams in all of the developed mid-market private equity markets globally, including EMEA and North America, working with both global and regional sponsors to both underwrite and hold opportunities alongside sponsors.
