DBS Hires Macquarie’s Tse as CEO of Asia Investment Bank

DBS Group Holdings Ltd., Southeast Asia’s largest bank, hired Jerry Tse from Macquarie Group Ltd. as chief executive officer for its investment banking unit, replacing Stephen Ho.

Tse, 43, will start in November and be based in Hong Kong, Grace Ngoh, a Singapore-based spokeswoman at the bank, said in an e-mail. Ho is on sabbatical leave and remains with the firm, she said.

DBS is ranked 10th advising on share sales in Asia outside Japan this year, up from 18th in 2012, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Chief Executive Officer Piyush Gupta said in February 2010 the bank is seeking to reduce dependence on Singapore from about two-thirds of revenue to 40 percent in five years, with the rest of south and southeast Asia accounting for 30 percent and a similar share from Greater China.

Tse, who resigned from Macquarie this month after more than five years at the Australian bank, has been involved with investment banking in China for more than a decade, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named before an official announcement is made. Tse had previously worked for Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank AG.

In his new role, one of Tse’s major mandates will be to boost DBS’s China and Hong Kong advisory operations, the person said.

Elizabeth Cox, a Hong Kong spokeswoman at Macquarie, declined to comment.

DBS got 38 percent of its profit from outside Singapore last year, compared with 35 percent in 2008, according to the bank’s annual reports.