Veteran capital markets banker Carsten Stoehr is rejoining Credit Suisse following a 3.5 years’ stint at Standard Chartered, which is battling to recalibrate its capital markets business. Stoehr will head up a new group called Asia-Pacific Financing according to an internal memo seen by The Asset. A spokesperson at Credit Suisse confirmed the contents of the memo.

The unit brings together the bank’s existing capabilities in emerging markets finance, equity share-backed lending, corporate banking and private banking structured lending. It will act as the centralized structuring, risk management and syndication platform to support the strategic financing needs of its ultra-high net worth (UHNW) clients and top corporates.

Interesting, the group will in addition be supporting the execution of UHNW clients’ co-investment opportunities that fall outside the bank’s existing trading activities. It underscores further the bank’s bet that a strategy to support UHNW clients and their business interests will work.

Since Tidjane Thiam, the CEO of Credit Suisse, unveiled an Asia strategy in October 2015, the bank has been moving its investment banking (IB) business even closer to its business of banking UHNW clients in Asia. In November 2015, the bank moved Vikram Malhotra, from head of IB to a new role as executive vice-chairman covering UHNW clients. Part of his role includes managing a fund that would co-invest with the bank’s UHNW clients.

It is a strategy that has worked well especially in Indonesia where Credit Suisse has a successful formula of banking Indonesian tycoons both for their corporate and private banking needs. It has generated double-digit returns and catapulted Helman Sitohang, who built the business in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, to be appointed as CEO of Asia-Pacific in 2014.

As a result of tighter regulatory oversight following the global financial crisis, banks are restructuring their business more closely around clients – and away from trading – in a bid to deepen relationships. It is no longer about the number of clients but the quality of engagement that banks hope should lead to an increased wallet share.

Banks such as HSBC has moved to that model a couple of years ago when it brought together capital financing under one roof encompassing all aspects of finance including equity, debt and advisory. In the case of HSBC, however, the synergy is more between its capital markets and commercial banking, where it enjoys inherent strength given its roots especially in the emerging Asian corporates.

Standard Chartered, The Asset understands, is also moving in the same direction as HSBC under Bill Winters, the new CEO formerly with JPMorgan. But it is still a work in progress. In the meantime, the bank is seeing departures including Stoehr, who was replaced by Vinod Aachi, previously Standard Chartered’s head of structured trade finance. Another recent departure was Peter Szekely, who headed Southeast Asia debt capital markets until August 2015. He is now with ANZ as head of specialty funds, Asia.

Stoehr is best known for his expertise in the fixed income market. He first moved to Hong Kong in November 1999 as head of Credit Suisse’s debt capital markets following a successful career in central Europe launching inaugural sovereign bond issues for countries such as Croatia and Hungary. He joined Standard Chartered in June 2012 as global head of capital markets. In September 2013, he moved to the role of global head of financial markets sales reporting to Lenny Feder, group head of financial markets. Feder left the bank less than a year later in July 2014.