Vietnamese fund management and real estate firm VinaCapital Group enlisted Stacy Kincaid as a fund portfolio managing director. She handles structuring and capital raising efforts for investments including real estate and infrastructure projects, as well as planned limited partnerships.

Prior to this, Kincaid managed the placement of private equity funds for Probitas Partners in San Francisco.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch said Steven Niemczyk will join its global corporate and investment banking business as global head of asset management investment banking in June. Niemczyk has been global head of asset management investment banking at UBS in London. He will relocate to New York and report to Michael Rubinoff, head of global financial institutions corporate and investment banking.

From 2001 to 2006, Niemczyk was a managing director in Morgan Stanley's financial institutions group in New York and London. He was a general partner at Lazard from 1990 to 2001 and held previous positions with Blackstone Group LP and Salomon Brothers Inc. from 1983 to 1990.

Separately, Dan Sukmanowsky joined Banc of America Securities-Merrill Lynch Research as a Canadian economist and strategist, based in Toronto. He arrives from TD Bank Financial Group's economics team.

Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. expanded into the insurance sector, adding Scott Brewer to its investment banking department as a managing director in the financial institutions group. Brewer comes to Stifel's Cleveland office from KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., where he headed the insurance group in the corporate and investment banking division. Prior to that, Brewer was a FIG mergers and acquisitions banker at Morgan Stanley in New York.

Joining Brewer in the FIG group will be senior analyst Bryce Myers. He also comes from KBCM's insurance group, where he focused on advisory and capital-raising engagements.

New York broker-dealer Guggenheim Capital Markets LLC hired James Palen as a managing director. Palen will help augment GCM's aviation capital markets capabilities in sales, trading and investment banking and will cover other areas of the transportation sector. Palen was a director at Credit Suisse Group, handling secured capital market transactions for transportation clients.

Broker-dealer Broadpoint Capital Inc. said Brian Zucker joined as a managing director in the debt capital markets division. Zucker was with Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., where he was head of high-yield cash trading. Before, he was a vice president of high-yield trading at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and worked at BancBoston Securities Inc. and Lehman Brothers.

Linklaters announced that Lewis Steinberg will join the firm's New York office as co-head of the U.S. practice and head of the U.S. tax practice. Steinberg was managing director and global head of the strategic solutions group in the investment banking department at UBS, a position he held since 2005.

Prior to joining UBS, Steinberg was a partner and co-head of the tax department with Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, where he specialized in corporate, partnership and international tax, focusing on mergers and acquisitions, financial products and corporate finance transactions. He is also a former chair of the New York State Bar Association Tax Section.

Jeff Holt, Neil Pritz, Eric Zampol and Christopher Cochran joined BMO Capital Markets Corp.'s fixed-income group, covering public sector and infrastructure. Holt and Pritz join as managing directors, while Zampol and Cochran arrive as vice presidents. Cochran will focus on the healthcare sector.

Holt has worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co., PaineWebber Inc., First Boston and Morgan Stanley. Pritz was a managing director with Banc of America Securities LLC in Chicago, where he developed its public finance practice in the Upper Midwest. Zampol has more than six years of experience in mergers and acquisitions and infrastructure finance working in Goldman Sachs in San Francisco. Cochran was a vice president with RBC Capital Markets Corp. in its Chicago public finance office, offering bond, derivative and credit facility financings.

A corporate team including partners Michael Liu, Stanley Chow, Simon Berry, Kenneth Chan, Cathy Yeung, William Woo and Jane Ng left Allen & Overy LLP for the Hong Kong office of Latham & Watkins LLP.

Also, finance partner David Miles relocated to Hong Kong from London to develop the firm's English law finance practice in Asia. He will also be the first member of Latham & Watkins' executive committee to be based in Asia.

Separately, the firm named three partners: Litigators Eric Barbier de La Serre of Brussels and Daiske Yoshida of Tokyo; and corporate attorney Juan Manuel de Remedios in Madrid.

DolmatConnell & Partners, an executive compensation consulting firm, tapped P. Garth Gartrell as a managing director and West Coast practice leader.

Gartrell hails from Greenberg Traurig LLP in Menlo Park, Calif., where he was a partner and primary equity compensation specialist. Before GT, he was compensation and benefits group chair at Heller Ehrman LLP's Venture Law Group; co-chair of the employee benefits group at Fenwick & West LLP's Palo Alto, Calif., office; a member of the employee benefits group at Pillsbury Madison & Sutro; and a compensation consultant at Watson Wyatt Co.