Macquarie hires M&A specialist Kalpana Desai

Macquarie Group has hired Kalpana Desai as deputy head of Asia for Macquarie Capital Advisers, the firm's corporate advisory and equity underwriting business, it said in a release yesterday.

Desai has more than 20 years of investment banking experience, according to the Macquarie announcement, and was most recently a senior managing director and head of Asia-Pacific mergers and acquisitions at Merrill Lynch. She left Merrill, part of the enlarged Bank of America Merrill Lynch, in May this year after 11 years with the firm.

At Macquarie, she will be based in Hong Kong and report to Andrew Low, who is head of Asia for Macquarie Capital, an entity which incorporates Macquarie Capital Advisers as well...