115. Raymond Lei Yin, War Stories from Capital Markets in Asia

Show Notes:

Raymond Lei Yin moved to New York after graduating and has worked at Goldman Sachs for over 20 years, primarily in Hong Kong and Shanghai, China. He worked in China with a private fund for three and a half years and for UBS Asset Management as the Head of Asia Pacific and Head of China for the past 6 years. Now retired from UBS Asset Management, Raymond  is currently traveling around the world, visiting his parents and enjoying the outdoors. He is also looking for opportunities to get involved with communities, businesses or organizations where he can contribute his expertise.

Capital Markets War Stories 
Raymond shares many war stories from his time in Hong Kong, China, and the capital markets during the financial crisis. He started at Goldman Sachs in New York and eventually moved to Asia. He was a program analyst in 1992 and supported the international trading desk at Goldman. This experience was interesting, as the traders he worked with at the time were hires from Salomon Brothers and Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB). He likens this time to working in a jungle where his goal was to survive each day.  Raymond's journey has been filled with challenges and opportunities, but he is now focused on pursuing his passion for learning (especially in AI) and helping other businesses to grow.

Working in Equity Capital Markets
Raymond began his career in Hong Kong after realizing that the core part of Goldman's business was financial advisory and trading. He decided to look for a job outside Goldman and was about to resign when he was offered a position by a senior MD looking for a Chinese speaking analyst based in Hong Kong. He flew to London for interviews and was hired to work in equity capital markets, which he knew little about.
Equity capital markets is an interesting area that straddles between investment banking and equity sales and trading. Raymond was trained by Eric Dobkin, the man who  introduced the concept of the Equity Capital Markets (ECM), which orchestrated IPOs and worked with both issuers and investors to set the price. During the Red Chip Boom in 1993, there was a huge demand for Chinese speaking bankers in Hong Kong, as there were not many Chinese bankers at that time. As the first full-time equity capital markets person based in Hong Kong, Raymond worked tirelessly to keep up with the pace of IPOs.

Lesson Learned from the Market
One lesson that Raymond learned during this time was that the market can be irrational. During the Red Chip Boom, Chinese IPOs were richly valued, due to scarcity of Chinese papers and the high demand for Chinese investments. However, since then, the market has seen several cycles of price fluctuations. To make money in the equity market, he believes that one must be a contrarian, have a long sustained power, and be liquid.
In the early 90s, Hong Kong had an open market with many foreign capitals and traditional institutions representing their firms in London or New York. Goldman helped Chinese companies raise money in international capital markets through IPOs, global deposit receipts (GDRs), and convertible bonds (CBs). The Chinese government was involved in these deals, as they were selling their best assets to global investors in exchange for professional management and market discipline. The first deal was with Tsingtao Breweries, a famous beer company, and later with Shanghai Petrochemical and China Mobile and PetroChina. These companies were majority-held by the Chinese government, and Goldman had an edge in winning these deals. Goldman also worked on Korean companies like POSCO Steel and Samsung Electronics, as well as Thai and Indonesian companies.

The Asian Financial Crisis
The Asian financial crisis occurred in 1997, when the devaluation of the Thai Bhat and Indonesian Rupiah led to a massive attack in Hong Kong markets. For a few days, the entire HK equity market was dominated by one buyer, the Hong Kong government.  Raymond saw the government’s bid for 100 million shares of Hong Kong telecom got hit within 2 seconds. This could mark the end of capital markets in Hong Kong, as the government was buying the significant part of HK equity market.  However, in hindsight this was the single best time to buy Hong Kong equities, as the Hong Kong government made a lot of money that day. In subsequent years, Goldman helped the Hong Kong government sell these stocks at a profit, returning the market to private investors.  One company Raymond worked with was PetroChina where Goldman took the company public and Raymond helped to introduce the team management to global investors. It was during the dotcom bubble era, there was ver little investor appetite for oil stocks.  Eventually, the IPO was done as a discount valuation.  Investors who bought at PetroChina IPO all made money if they hold on to their shares.

From Goldman to Private Funds to UBS Asset Management
Raymond's next move was to the buy side - a China based  private fund.  He spent three and a half years traveling between Shanghai and Hong Kong to help them set up their international operation, hire people, lease office space, get the Type 9 license, and set up their Hong Kong office. He later joined UBS Asset Management first as Head of China then later as Head of Asia Pacific.  He worked at UBS Asset Management for the past 6 years.  


Influential Harvard Professors and Courses
Raymond shares that his Art History course at Harvard was one of the most useful, as it allowed him to appreciate artwork and visit museums worldwide. He also enjoyed the core course Cultural Revolution taught by Professor Roderick MacFarquar, which was not offered in China.

Timestamps:

04:15: Early Career at Goldman Sachs 

09:51: Experience in Hong Kong and Equity Capital Markets 

14:46: The Asian Financial Crisis and Market Lessons

26:31: Building Sales and Trading Operations in China 

28:44: Transition to the Buy Side and Final Steps at Goldman 

31:11: Personal Life and Interests 

38:19: Reflections on Harvard and Career Advice 

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymond-yin-cfa-613a017a/

Email: [email protected]

Featured Non-profit:

This week’s featured non-profit is Alex's Lemonade Stand, recommended by Catherine Marcus Rose who reports:

Hi. I'm Catherine Marcus Rose, class of 1992 the featured nonprofit of this episode of The 92 report is Alex's Lemonade Stand, foundation for Children's Cancer. Alex's Lemonade Stand focuses on impacting lives of children with cancer through fundraising for critical research and awareness raising support for families and children with cancer. I love the work of this organization and have been a regular donor for a few years. When our youngest son, age 21 was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma last December, this organization became even more important to us. Only four cents of every dollar spent on cancer research at the NCI goes to research in pediatric cancers. So the work of this organization has taken on extra meaning for us. You can learn more about their work at Alex's lemonade.org, a l e x, s, L E, M o, n, a, de.org and now here is Will Bachman with this week's episode.

To learn more about their work visit: https://www.alexslemonade.org/