Willis Capital Markets & Advisory adds new senior Asia hire

Willis Capital Markets & Advisory (WCMA), the investment banking, capital markets and insurance-linked securities (ILS) focused unit of global advisory, insurance and reinsurance broker Willis Towers Watson, has added a new senior hire in Asia.

WCMA has appointed Vincent Lien as Managing Director of Hong Kong. Lien was most recently with Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong, where he was a senior member of the Banking, Financial Institutions Group, prior to which he spent time working for Merrill Lynch’s investment banking division in the US and Hong Kong.

Lien will report directly to WCMA Co-CEO’s, Michael Guo and Rafal Walkiewicz and be based in Hong Kong. He will be tasked with helping to expand WCMA’s relationship with multinational insurers, Asian institutional investors, and financial institutions across the Asia region.

Lien brings experience in the execution and origination of insurance transactions such as Anbang Group’s acquisition of Vivat Insurance in the Netherlands, Principal Financial Group’s acquisition of AXA’s retirement business in Hong Kong, Cathay Life taking a stake in Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation in the Philippines and AIA’s acquisition of Aviva NDB Insurance in Sri Lanka.

Commenting on the hire, Co-CEO of WCMA, Michael Guo said; “Vincent is an excellent addition to our team in Asia and I am delighted to have him onboard. His extensive investment banking experience with global and regional financial institutions in the US and Asia will significantly strengthen our team’s expertise and capabilities.

“The deep market knowledge of our team in Asia was instrumental to the success of the recently closed transactions. WCMA has a closely integrated global team and it is our unique access to Asian investors that strongly differentiates our client offering in driving success in cross-border M&A transactions.”

Lien added; “I am excited to be joining Willis Towers Watson and embarking on a new challenge with WCMA, a specialist insurance platform with an established track record. I look forward to working with the team to further develop and broaden their market coverage in Asia.”

Lien looks to be largely focused on the M&A side of insurance and reinsurance capital markets work, but the additional manpower at WCMA in Asia will help the firm to source new clients for the insurance-linked securities (ILS) structuring side of the business.

Asia is a key focus for many of the reinsurance broker capital market teams, with significant potential for growth of collateralised reinsurance, ILS and catastrophe bonds in the region, as well as a largely untapped investor base. Join us for our ILS conference in Singapore in July to learn more about the Asian ILS market.