Vikram Lamba, a managing director on HSBC's leveraged and acquisition finance team, has left the bank after a career built largely around financing deals in Asia. Lamba, who was based in Hong Kong, departed earlier this month and has since joined ICG, an alternative asset manager, as head of its Asia Pacific corporate business.
ICG manages roughly 127 billion dollars in assets and has been building out its presence across the region, an expansion that a hire like Lamba is meant to support. Moving from a leveraged finance role at a bank into a corporate leadership position at a private capital firm is a familiar path for senior bankers looking to move closer to where deals are actually structured and funded rather than simply arranged.
The departure adds to a string of senior exits HSBC has faced in its investment banking ranks across Asia and the Middle East over the past year, part of a broader pattern of talent moving between global banks and the private capital firms that have grown more aggressive in hiring away deal experienced bankers. HSBC has also been rebuilding parts of its leveraged finance team, including bringing in a banker from Deutsche Bank to serve as global head of the business.
Leveraged finance, which covers the debt used to fund acquisitions, buyouts and other highly leveraged transactions, has become an increasingly contested area for talent as private credit funds and alternative managers compete directly with banks for both deals and the bankers who know how to execute them. Lamba's move to ICG is one more example of that competition playing out at the individual level.
For HSBC, losing an experienced leveraged finance banker in Hong Kong comes at a moment when Asian deal activity has been picking up, making the timing notable even if turnover at senior levels of investment banking is common. How quickly the bank fills the gap, and whether it can hold onto the rest of its regional leveraged finance team, will be a more telling signal than the departure itself.