Nov 4, 2024
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: yinraymond@yahood.com
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/