ABN AMRO has launched its Asian corporate finance advisory business, as it continues to build its range of wholesale banking services for energy, commodities and transportation clients. The bank's ECT clients business is one of the most active lenders to companies in these sectors globally.

The experienced advisory team will be based in Singapore and originate as well as execute cross-border M&A in countries across the region (including Australia, Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan) and also provide equity capital markets capabilities in Singapore.

It will be led by Frank van Deur, managing director of corporate finance and capital markets Asia, who has relocated from the bank's Amsterdam headquarters for the new role. He has been involved in Asian, Middle Eastern and European cross border M&A transactions for the last decade, after working as a senior energy banker in Houston and Chicago.

ABN AMRO's wholesale banking offering for Asian clients now includes loan syndications, debt capital markets, acquisition finance, structured finance and project finance. The bank acted as sole corporate finance adviser to Dutch agricultural commodities company Nidera during its announced sale to China's Cofco, one of the largest M&A transactions in Asian commodities in recent times. The bank last month acted as co-manager for the IPO of IREIT Global, its first ever ECM role in Singapore and which was jointly supported by ABN AMRO Private Banking's Singapore office.

To support the bank's ECT clients activities, Arjan van Rijn has been appointed head of ECT clients Asia and also relocates to Singapore from Amsterdam. He has many years of international investment banking experience and has helped to rebuild ABN AMRO's leading corporate banking franchise in the Netherlands. He started his career with Rabobank in Frankfurt, before working in leveraged finance at Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and ABN AMRO in London. Stefan Ras will also relocate to Singapore as a senior energy banker. He has broad experience in investment banking and holds an MBA, with distinction, from Columbia Business School.