HONG KONG, Jan 20 (Reuters) - British investment bank

Barclays ( JJCTF ) said on Monday it has appointed former Goldman

Sachs banker Paul Johnson as head of equities for Asia Pacific.

Based in Hong Kong, Johnson will lead Barclays' ( JJCTF ) equities

business in the Asia Pacific region, focusing on equity

derivatives, equity-linked financing, and electronic trading,

while also overseeing its prime brokerage business, according to

a statement from the bank.

Johnson, who has been in the equities and derivatives

business for more than two decades, most recently served as

Goldman's Asia Pacific co-head of equity derivatives and head of

exotics equity derivatives trading in Hong Kong.

Prior to that, Johnson was head of Central and Eastern

Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEEMEA) and Latin America

foreign exchange options (FXO) trading at Bank of America in

London, where he focused on expanding new franchises in the

region. He had previously spent over a decade at Goldman Sachs ( GS )

in CEEMEA FXO trading.