Ronald Tam is executive director for investment banking, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and corporate finance at UBS Asia. He specialises in executing initial public offerings (IPO) and equity transactions, and M&A transactions.
How did you break into the investment banking field?
I have been in the field since 2000, although I graduated in 1997. A year before I graduated, I did a three-month internship at an investment bank called ING Barings, and it was there that I realised this was what I wanted to do.
However, because of the Asian financial crisis in late 1997, I couldn't get into investment banking right out of college. I spent three years with Ernst & Young as a trainee accountant and then joined HSBC's executive trainee programme. In 2000, I rejoined ING Barings when the industry recovered. I was an analyst at the bank's Asian M&A team in Hong Kong for four years before ING sold its equity business to Macquarie Bank. I then joined Bank of China International as an assistant vice-president. I was senior vice-president there prior to joining UBS as director in 2007. I became executive director this year.
What does your work entail?
For IPOs, we work closely with auditors and lawyers and often need to resolve specific accounting or legal issues. Meanwhile, we market the deal by preparing marketing materials and co-ordinating roadshows, and getting analysts to prepare research reports.
For M&A, we prepare information memorandum and marketing materials, build valuation models to try to determine the market value of a business or an asset, and help buyers and sellers bridge their valuation gap. We also participate in the negotiation of commercial and legal terms in transaction documents.
