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| Gordon Paterson thinks Deutsche’s Asia coverage is nearly there |
Deutsche Bank has risen to a top spot on the league table for announced M&A in Asia excluding Japan after years outside the top 10. The firm is the number-one adviser on announced deals excluding Japan on Thomson Financial’s table and is second according to Dealogic’s criteria. Perhaps happier about the news than anyone is Gordon Paterson, head of M&A at Deutsche Bank since 2007. Paterson was hired from Citi, where he held the same title, to build up Deutsche Bank’s Asia M&A capabilities. The firm has historically struggled in the market, failing to make league table top 10s and being viewed in the words of one competitor as "a massive underperformer relative to its strengths in other asset classes, such as FX and fixed income".
Deutsche Bank has been building its team in the region since 2007 with a string of hires: this year they include Richard Gibb, formerly of Merrill Lynch, as co-head of FIG Asia, and YB Kwon of UBS, who covers Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Paterson will not comment on his team’s total headcount now but says that "in terms of quality and size of team we now compare well to anyone", and that while it is still beefing up its presence in some areas such as Korea and southeast Asia, the bank’s coverage in Asia is almost where he wants it to be.