Jefferies, a global securities and investment banking firm, has hired three senior professionals within the firm's emerging markets group to be based in Singapore, as part of its expansion plan in Asia.

Lance Heatley, previously based in London, will relocate to Singapore as a managing director to lead the firm’s emerging markets sales and trading activities in Asia.

Mr Heatley has more than 22 years of experience in financial services. Prior to joining Jefferies a year ago, he spent ten years at Bear Stearns as a managing director in emerging markets fixed income trading. Previously, he worked at Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch in emerging markets derivatives in London and New York.

In addition, Jay Lee joins as a senior vice president from Knight Libertas and Jeremy Lee joins as a senior vice president from The Royal Bank of Scotland. Both will focus on the sales of emerging markets debt with Asian clients.

Jay Lee has more than 10 years of experience in financial services. Prior to his role at Knight Libertas, he worked in a variety of emerging markets sales and trading roles at Calyon CIB Seoul, Fortis Bank and Daiwa Securities in Hong Kong and Seoul, Korea.

Jeremy Lee has more than 17 years of experience in financial services. Prior to his role as a director in global markets fixed income sales at RBS, he worked in a variety of fixed income sales roles at Calyon and Commerzbank SEA.

Tim Cronin, global head of fixed income at Jefferies, said: “We have significantly expanded our efforts during the past two years and now have more than 450 professionals in the US, Europe and Asia, including nearly 30 sales and trading professionals focused on emerging markets in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia.”

In a joint statement, Charles Cortellesi and Erich Bauer-Rowe, global co-heads of the firm’s emerging markets group within Jefferies’ fixed income division, said: “We are pleased to extend our footprint in Asia and are confident about Lance Heatley’s leadership in this regard. In addition, we welcome Jay Lee and Jeremy Lee to Jefferies and look forward to this team’s contributions in Asia, an incredibly important region for our emerging markets platform and, more broadly, our global fixed income franchise.”