(Bloomberg) -- UBS Group AG’s Asia-Pacific investment bank head, David Chin, has resigned to step away from banking five years after he was brought back to help bolster the Swiss lender’s China business.   

Chin, 54, will be replaced by Taichi Takahashi, the region’s head of global markets, according to an internal memo on Thursday that confirmed an earlier Bloomberg News report. A Hong Kong-based spokesman confirmed the content of the memo.

His retirement from banking comes at a time when global investment banks are roiled by increased geopolitical tension between the US and China as well as a sharp slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy. The firm’s China investment banking revenue has plunged by about half this year, though gains in Japan and Australia helped prop up its overall Asia business, people familiar said earlier. 

Takahashi will take over as head of investment bank Asia Pacific effective Nov. 1, according to the memo by Rob Karofsky, the global head of the division, and Ed Koh, the Swiss bank’s president for Asia Pacific. Takahashi joined UBS as an equities trader in Tokyo in 1994 and moved to Hong Kong in 2012. 

Further changes in global markets Asia Pacific will be announced in “due course,” according to the memo.

Chin earlier this year also stepped aside as country head of UBS’s China business. He started his career at UBS in 1994, briefly retired from the bank in 2015 before he rejoined in 2017 to become head of corporate client solutions for Asia-Pacific. He was made head of Asia Pacific investment bank in 2019, giving him oversight of the global markets business. 

Before the slowdown this year, UBS’s mainland China revenue more than doubled to almost $1 billion in 2021 from 2019, becoming the third biggest contributor in Asia Pacific, displacing Australia, a person familiar said earlier. Chin also oversaw UBS boosting its stake in its China securities venture to 67% this year.

The bank recently let go of half a dozen mainland China-focused employees in Hong Kong, trimming bankers in businesses including debt capital markets, investment banking and real estate, people familiar said earlier.

Global investment banking revenue at UBS tumbled 57% in the second quarter during what Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers said was one of the most difficult periods for investors in a decade.

(Updates with confirmation in second paragraph, details on successor in fourth.)

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.