UBS China managing director leaving company: sources

By Michael Flaherty

HONG KONG (Reuters) - UBS AG's (UBSN.VX) managing director of its China investment banking division is leaving the firm, sources with knowledge of the situation said on Tuesday.

Will Li, who joined UBS from Citigroup (C.N) about three years ago, played a key role in several major Chinese IPOs that UBS underwrote during the region's offering boom last year.

The Chinese IPO bubble burst earlier this year, and the offering market has since dried up.

Last year, Li was involved in the Country Garden Holdings Co. (2007.HK) IPO, which raised US$1.66 billion in the biggest-ever IPO by a Chinese developer.

He also worked on the US$1.65 billion IPO by Beijing-based SOHO China Ltd (0410.HK).

Li, reached by telephone, declined to comment on his departure, and UBS also declined comment.

Sources also said that Unis Chong, a member of UBS's M&A advisory team in Hong Kong, was leaving the company.

UBS would not comment on her departure, and she could not be reached.

It was unclear why either banker was leaving UBS, which said on Tuesday it would cut 5,500 of its workforce, or almost 7 percent, through layoffs and attrition in the wake of the subprime credit crisis as it reverses a rapid expansion into investment banking.

Asia has been one of UBS' bright spots in the last year. But the credit crunch has pinched the Asian markets, with IPO activity in China and beyond plunging in the last few months.

Data show that mainland Chinese firms raised $147.7 billion in equity last year, 59 percent of the Asian total. During that boom, UBS (UBSN.VX) (UBS.N) topped the investment banking league table in Asia-Pacific outside Japan, according to Thomson/Freeman. It's strong Asian performance came despite a whopping $10 billion write-down late last year on subprime losses.

UBS said on Tuesday conditions in the financial markets and the global economy remained difficult and reported a first-quarter loss of US$10.93 billion, slightly better than what it had already announced in April.

While Western investment banks have been cutting jobs globally, Asia's booming economic growth has spared banks from large-scale cuts across the region.

(Reporting by Michael Flaherty, Editing by Ken Wills)