By Marcus Williams

Japan’s Daiwa Capital has appointed Jung Insuk as head of fixed income in Korea and Ajay Marwaha as head of fixed income in India in an expansion of the business.

Insuk joins from Shinhan Investment Corp., where he was head of fixed income, currency & commodities. Prior to this, he was responsible for trading a wide variety of FICC products, such as domestic and international bonds, currencies and derivatives, at Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse First Boston and KDB Securities.

Ajay Marwaha joins from Nomura in  India, where he served as executive director. Previously, he was also responsible for FICC product trading, and involved in the launch of primary dealer business lines at Lehman Brothers and Citi Group.

In November 2009, Daiwa Capital Markets announced a four-part core action plan to expand its Asian business: upgrading the Hong Kong office to second headquarters status, increasing personnel, strengthening of capital, and appointing local influential figures as advisors. Since then, a number of senior level hires, as well as a series of capital injections have been made in line with this strategy.

These expansion plans, which are focused particularly on China and Hong Kong, followed by India, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, are aimed at significantly expanding operations in Asia, with specific focus on Fixed Income and derivative operations.

The recently announced acquisition of KBC’s global convertible bonds and Asian equity derivative business lines was also in line with this strategy.

Daiwa said the appointment of  Insuk and Marwaha will be followed by further hires and is the first step in expanding operations in these markets.

By Marcus Williams

Renaissance Asset Managers, the investment unit of Renaissance Group, has hired Dmitry Mikhailov from Uralsib as a fund manager.

Mikhailov will run two of Renaissance’s Russian equity retails funds known as PIFs and co-manage the RenShares Utilities Fund, which Sergey Bubnov lead manages.

Mikhailov was at Uralsib as portfolio manager on sector PIFs as well as on the Russian Small and Mid Cap Fund. Last year  Uralsib’s Power Utilities PIF was the best performing Russian utilities fund, having increased in value by 297.63%* in USD terms.

Before joining Uralsib in 2006, he was CEO of a local asset management boutique, managing HNWIs’ savings globally. In 2002-2005, as CIO of private equity fund HealthTech Corp., Mikhailov was responsible for investment research and M&A.

Renaissance recently spun off its fund management arm from its wealth management business.

By Ivan Anderzhanov.

VTB Capital is continuing its aggressive expansion with the recruitment of Vladimir Potapov from Troika Dialog to the position of head of portfolio management business of VTB Asset Management.

Potapov will supervise the strategy development and implementation in Portfolio Management Business. VTB said the new appointment will “strengthen VTB AM positions in the asset management market, maximizing effective synergy with other business lines. “

Prior to joining VTB Capital, Potapov spent over seven years at Troika Dialog. He graduated from the Higher School of Economics and People University of China (Beijing). He is also a CFA Charterholder and was named in 2006 by Finance magazine as one of Russia’s top 10 fund managers.

Yuri Soloviev, President and Global CEO at VTB Capital, said: Potapov will expand VTB Asset Management’s  client base on global markets. He said: “This will enable the portfolio managers’ team to continue their outstanding performance and gain further recognition from private and institutional clients”.

By Andrei Skvarsky

VTB Capital has made two high-profile hirings by appointing Andreas Boesenberg, a former partner at a German investment boutique, as deputy head of private equity and special situations and taking on Iain Grosvenor from Credit Suisse as a consultant.

Boesenberg, who will be based in Moscow, was a partner at Wermuth Asset Management (WAM), a firm that has its headquarters in Wiesbaden and advises on alternative investments in Eastern Europe, primarily Russia. He has co-founded and co-managed a $70 million private equity fund, VTB Capital said in a statement.

Boesenberg, who holds degrees from the London School of Economics and Sussex University, has carried through more than 25 private equity transactions in Russia, Germany and the U.S. over the past decade.

Grosvenor, a Liverpool University graduate who works at the Russian bank’s London office, specialises in business process analysis and improvement and in human resources management.

VTB Capital, which is aggressively fighting its way into Russian and international financial markets, debuted over two years ago by poaching more than 100 staff from Deutsche Bank and has a 2010 target of boosting its personnel by 40% to 1,000.

By Ivan Anderzhanov.

Credit Suisse has named internal candidate Steven Hellman to lead its business in Russia and the CIS after scouring the entire market for a replacement for Fawzi Kyriakos-Saad.

Kyriakos-Saad recently moved to London to replace Eric Varvel as head of Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Varvel has been named as chief executive officer of the bank to replace Paul Calello who is suffering from a serious illness.

Banking insiders said Credit Suisse has been looking for over a year under every stone for Kyriakos-Saad’s replacement.  Hellman, as head of investment banking in Moscow, had been putting his hand in the air for quite some time before the Swiss bank’s management clocked him.

Credit Suisse First office in Russia opened in 1991 and is one of the leading foreign investment banks in Moscow.  Hellman will work at developing investment banking, asset management and apparently private equity, according to a statement today.

Hellman joined Credit Suisse in 1997 and worked for two years as part of the global energy group in London and Moscow. After several years in other companies, he returned to Los Angeles branch of Credit Suisse in 2004.

By Andrei Skvarsky

Alfa-Bank, oligarch Mikhail Fridman’s investment banking group, has denied rumours Gene Movdavsky is stepping down as head of corporate finance.

Insiders said Moldavsky, who joined Alfa-Bank in 2007 after resigning as executive director at Swiss bank UBS, is leaving but Alfa’s international media office told EmergingMarkets.me this was not true.

An employee at Moldavsky’s office said the banker is on leave and is due to be back Aug 9 or 10.

Moldavsky, a graduate of Boston University, and Edward Kaufman, who co-heads Alfa’s corporate investment banking division, both served at UBS before joining Alfa, Kaufman being head of investment banking at the Swiss firm.

By Marcus Williams

Cem Habib, a partner and head of the fund of hedge funds business at Cheyne Capital, has quit the firm to join an investment bank in Kazakhstan.

The Turkish born financier Habib will work in a private equity role with a Kazakh investment bank, according to a Reuters report.

Habib, whose missus had dalliances with Hugh Grant and Prince Andrew amongst others, won’t be foresaking quite all of Mayfair’s pleasures for the Kazakh steppes. Apparently, he will spend 10 days a month there and does not plan to fully relocate to Central Asia.

Cheyne manages around $5 billion in assets, which probably doesn’t include much in Kazakhstan.

By Andrei Skvarsky.

Vladimir Bragin quit as chief economist at Moscow-based bank Trust to join Alfa Capital, oligarch Mikhail Fridman’s asset manager.

Moscow’s community of economists are developing itchy pants syndrome in the last few months with many of the leading names switching banks.

Bragin, whose departure about a forthnight ago was confirmed by a Trust spokeswoman, is the latest in a string of Moscow economists to find new roles this year.

Rory MacFarquhar quit Goldman Sachs in March to be hired as a senior adviser by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Ivan Tchakarov of Japan’s Nomura in Moscow was tapped by Bank of America Merrill Lynch in late April as their chief economist. The role had been previously vacated by Yulia Tseplyayeva, who went over to French bank BNP Paribas to be their chief number cruncher.

Tatiana Orlova also upped sticks in April as senior economist for Russia and Kazakhstan at the Netherlands’ ING Group. She was replaced by Dmitry Polevoy from Russian bank KIT Finance.

Have we left anyone out ? Answers on an emailed postcard please…

By Ivan Anderzhanov

Germany’s Deutsche Bank today named Daniel Jacobowitz as deputy head of global banking for Russia and CIS.

Jacobowitz, together with Andrew Chulack, head of global banking, will be responsible for deepening the bank’s relationships with top-tier corporate and financial institution clients.

The Harvard-educated banker joined Deutsche’s financial institutions group in 2002. Since 2007, he has led Russian and CIS financial institutions corporate finance coverage.

Deutsche bank has been fighting back lately to stem a loss of market share in Russia and to replenish a number of departures to rivals.

By Ivan Anderzhanov

UniCredit Securities is trying to bounce back from a wave of defections with an attempt to rebuild its investment banking team in Russia.

The Italian investment bank is believed to have hired  Jan Plesar, a senior sales trader from ING, and is plotting a  dozen or so further hires for research, mergers and acquisitions and project finance.

UniCredit has suffered a number of defections and departures from its Moscow team, not least since Aton relaunched its institutional business last summer. The Italian bank bought the original Aton business.

London-based Mark Robinson also recently stepped as global head of equity research and chief strategist. Pavel Sorokin, oil analyst, quit to join Alfa. Senior management have also left to do other things.

By Ivan Anderzhanov

Russian national operator Rostelecom has appointed former head of Marshall Capital Alexander Provotorov as its chief executive.

Provotorov ran Marshall Capital, a Moscow-based private equity firm from 2005 to 2009.  He will succeed Anton Kolpakov at Rostelecom, according to a company statement.

Provotorov  also once worked for Boris Jordan at Sputnik Group. Rostelecom said one of his main challenges is the creation of an organizational structure for an integrated Rostelecom.

By Marcus Williams

Dixit Joshi, the head of EMEA equities at Barclays Capital,  is set to leave the British investment bank, according to eFinancialCareers.

Joshi’s departure took place over the weekend, according to the website, who said his replacement will be named in due course.

Joshi was promoted to head of equities for Emea and Asia-Pacific in August 2009, charged with managing the bank’s rapidly expanding equities business. He had previously headed the equity-linked business and, before that, the equity-derivatives trading and arbitrage business at the UK bank, having joined from Credit Suisse First Boston in 2003.