이 기사는 2020년 05월 22일 08:00 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

South Korea’s NH Investment & Securities has hired an M&A advisory specialist in a move to strengthen its presence in the lucrative M&A advisory market.

NH Investment & Securities announced on May 4 that it has appointed Jason Lee to lead its M&A advisory team. The firm also has made a structural change to elevate the team to a specialized business department directly belonging to one of two divisions at the top of the organizational hierarchy within its investment banking (IB) unit.

NH Investment & Securities’ IB unit consists of two divisions – Business Division 1 and Business Division 2 – with five and three departments under each division. With this organizational change, the M&A team was elevated to a business department reporting directly to head of Business Division 1, Yoon Byoung-un.

“Strengthening the M&A advisory business appears to be a driving force behind NH Investment & Securities’ latest organizational change,” a source said.

Jason Lee is known as an M&A specialist. Prior to joining NH Investment & Securities, he worked for Belgian chemical company Solvay as head of strategy development. Before that, Lee held a managerial role at Woori Investment & Securities, which was merged with NH Nonghyup Securities in 2014 to form NH Investment & Securities.

“Both Yoon Byoung-un and Jason Lee started their career at LG Securities before working together at Woori Investment & Securities,” said the source. “From what I understand, Yoon has put a lot of efforts to have Lee in his team. It will be interesting to see how the long standing relationship between them creates synergies.”

In 2016 NH Investment & Securities came in ninth in the bell’s M&A financial advisors league tables compiled based on completed deals, with the firm advising on five deals. But the ranking fell to 20th in 2017 and further to 23rd in the following year. In 2019 no deal was advised on by the firm.

“NH Investment & Securities has seen plenty of departures from its M&A team recently,” another source said. “The latest organizational change appears to signal that the firm will continue to hire staff for M&A advisory services.”

At present NH Investment & Securities’ M&A advisory team has ten members or so. It is currently advising on the sale of a controlling stake in Insung Data, which operates deliver services app Logiall.

(Reporting by Byung-yoon Kim)