StanChart appoints Saurabh Agrawal as South Asia corporate finance head

Former Bank of America executive will replace V. Anantharaman, who has been reassigned as the lender’s South Asia co-head for wholesale banking.

Standard Chartered has hired a former Bank of America Merrill Lynch investment banker as head of corporate finance for South Asia, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Friday.

Saurabh Agrawal, head of India investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, will head merger and acquisition and corporate advisory businesses in South Asia in his new role at Standard Chartered, the sources said.

UK-based Standard Chartered, whose India operations account for the biggest share of its profit, was ranked fourth in the M&A league table last year, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Agrawal will be based in Mumbai and report into Prahlad Shantigram, Standard Chartered's global head of merger and acquisitions, said one of the sources. Both the sources declined to be named as the information is not public yet.

Agrawal, who is expected to take up his new position in September, will replace V. Anantharaman, who has moved to being the South Asia co-head for wholesale banking at Standard Chartered.

View the full story in Reuters.