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* Four ex-Barclays bankers launch new firm
* Independents rising in Asia as Wall St. rivals cut back
* New firm set to open up shop in next couple of months (Adds bankers' backgrounds, data on independent banks)
By Denny Thomas and Lawrence White
HONG KONG, May 12 (Reuters) - Four top former Asia-basedBarclays Plc investment bankers, who left last year inthe British bank's global cull, are setting up a newcross-border advisory firm, people with knowledge of the mattertold Reuters.
The four - Ed King, Johan Leven, Helge Weiner-Trapness andPeter Ding - are well known in Asia and have previously workedtogether in other Wall Street banks. The founders of the newfirm, who declined to comment, each have about 25 years ofexperience in investment banking.
The people with knowledge of the matter declined to beidentified because the details were not yet public.
The new bank will focus on advising companies oncross-border deals and is the first high-profile launch of aboutique advisory firm in Asia in a long time. It comes asindependent firms are beginning to make an impact in the region,climbing financial advisory league tables as big global firmsscale back their investment banking footprint to cut down oncosts.
Last year Lazard, one of the world's biggestindependent investment banks, finished twelfth among advisors onmergers in the Asia-Pacific region, up from 15th in 2013 and34th in 2012. Rival Moelis & Co ranks 9th in dealsannounced so far this year, up from 52nd at the end of lastyear.
All four of the bankers left Barclays' Hong Kong hub lastsummer as Chief Executive Antony Jenkins announced plans to cut7,000 jobs worldwide to save costs. The four were amongBarclays' top executives in the region prior to theirdepartures.
Prior to joining Barclays, King led Morgan Stanley's Asianmergers and acquisitions practice. He was succeeded by Ding,while Leven was head of corporate finance for Asia-Pacific andWeiner-Trapness ran the financial institutions group. Leven andWeiner-Trapness previously worked with Goldman Sachs.
Their new firm is likely to be operational in the nextcouple of months and add more staff in that time, the sourcessaid. Reuters could not ascertain the name of the new firm.
The last major wave of new independent boutiques in Asiacame after the 2008 financial crisis.
Examples include former Merrill Lynch Asia investmentbanking head Sheldon Trainor's PacBridge Capital Partners, andformer Citigroup Asian head Robert Morse's Primus FinancialHoldings. (Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Kenneth Maxwell)
