Downtown-based Wedbush Securities Inc. has formed a transpacific trading alliance through an agreement with Maybank, a partnership the company says will allow U.S. institutional investors to trade in Southeast Asian markets beginning in March.
The agreement inked between the two companies will allow U.S. investors to trade in Southeast Asian markets including Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam, among other areas.
“Wedbush is excited to enter into an alliance with Maybank to pursue our PacRim strategy. Maybank impressed us not only with its network and reach, but also its people, who are highly skilled, collaborative, and customer centric,” Wedbush Chief Executive Gary Wedbush said in a statement.
“We believe together we can distinctively serve investors and corporates who care about PacRim opportunities,” he added
Wedbush says that as a part of the alliance, which is intended to be open for trading on March 1, Maybank executives Jean-Louis Lee and Joe Borruso will join Wedbush Securities as managing directors, operating out of the company’s Investment Banking & Capital Markets division in New York.
Burke Dempsey, an executive vice president and head of investment banking at Wedbush, said the soon-to-be-accessible new markets will be a boon for investors.
“We want to offer our institutional investors a broader palette for them to earn returns, while offering our corporate investors the opportunity to lower their cost of capital and extend their capabilities,” Dempsey said in a statement.
