CS prime Tokyo poaches Morgan StanleyÆs Yoji

Credit Suisse has lured Morgan Stanley prime broker Yoji Koga, appointing him as a managing director to head prime services coverage in Japan, where he will handle sales and marketing for hedge funds. Credit Suisse currently has a prime broking team of 130 covering Asia.

Koga spent eight years at Morgan Stanley prime broking in Tokyo, marketing its services in Japan. Before then he worked at Yamaichi Securities in Tokyo, London and Hong Kong.

He will report to Kevin Meehan in Hong Kong, who heads prime services coverage in Asia. The latter currently holds the rank of director. If it does not compute that a managing director might report to a director via such an inverted reporting line, take consolation that such phenomena are not untypical of mitteleuropa matrix-management.

ôKoga-san will play a key role in prime services in Japan,ö says Meehan. ôWe see significant growth potential in both the domestic institutional market and international hedge funds trading Japan and will continue to grow our team. We are well positioned to capture growth across equities, derivatives and fixed income alongside initiatives such as Balanced Alpha [a 130/30 offering] where we are seeing institutional interest.ö

A spokesman for Morgan Stanley told AsianInvestor that Roger Dunphy is now running its Japan prime broking business.