Former Goldman Sachs banker joins BarCap

Barclays employed former Goldman Sachs banker as co-head of corporate finance in Asia-Pacific as the British bank continues its push as a full-fledged investment bank.

As Barclays Capital’s, the bank’s investment banking division, representative stated today Johan Leven would share the responsibility with Richard Gallivan and the two would report to Matthew Ginsburg, head of investment in Asia-Pacific. Previously Leven worked for Goldman Sachs where he was most recently co-head of mergers and acquisitions for Asia ex-Japan.

Half of a year ago Ginsburg joined Asia-Pacific leaving Morgan Stanley, with a mandate to build an investment banking franchise in Asia for Barclays from scratch.

BarCap is in the midst of building out its equities business in Asia. As part of that plan, BarCap had almost completed its Japan equities rollout and Hong Kong was next in line, Ginsburg told Reuters in an interview on Friday.

Leven and Gallivan are supposed to lead industry and country coverage groups in Asia-Pacific and suoervise key client relationships in Asia, which is seen as the most important growth region by many global banks.