Jefferies lures 7 more UBS bankers in Asia after Wang

Jefferies Group Inc.has hired at least seven other UBS AG bankers in Hong Kong after hiring Ren Wang  to become its Asia president.

Ronald Tam and Dai Qiang, both of whom were executive directors at UBS, were hired as managing directors for the New York-based firm’s investment banking team, according to insiders.

The bankers haven’t yet started at Jefferies. They will begin work in the first half of December, one of the people said.

The U.S. investment bank is expanding operations in Asia while rivals including Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse Group AG and Nomura Holdings Inc. cut jobs globally as revenue shrinks. Jefferies has declined 61 percent in New York this year on speculation that a liquidity crunch and losses on European debt will weigh on the firm.

Tam may also head Asia corporate finance, two of the people said. The five other executives were hired for positions ranging from senior vice president to analyst, two people said. Wang, who is also head of capital markets for Asia, will start in Hong Kong next week, a person said.

With the new hires, Jefferies will have 12 investment bankers in Hong Kong, and will focus on winning Chinese capital markets mandates and building leveraged finance business, one of the people said. Hong Kong and India will have about 30 bankers in total, the person said.

Jefferies is also building its equity sales, trading and research businesses and said in May that it hired Sean Huang from the Swiss bank to head securities finance trading in the region. The U.S. firm said in April it hired six managing directors in the region, including Stephen Nichols as head of Asia trading from Citigroup, and Adam Putterill, head of Hong Kong and China sales trading, from JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The U.S. investment bank in June said it won approval from Indian regulators to start equity research, sales and trading operations in the South Asian nation. Jefferies appointed Kunal Bajaj as head of India equity sales and Govind Chellappa as its research head, according to an e-mailed statement.

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