ANTIQUES SHOPS

Schwartz's placement in Beijing - rather than Hong Kong where peers from other big banks sit - puts him in a position to oversee the bank's joint venture there, Goldman Sachs Gao Hua, and to have quick access to leaders of some of the world's largest companies.

Schwartz, 57, first hired by Goldman 33 years ago and a former adviser to George Soros, will replace Michael Evans, who has served as Chairman of Asia Pacific since 2004. Evans is based in New York and will continue in his role as a vice chairman of the bank and global head of growth markets.

The move sees Goldman Sachs resolve a problem that has lingered since mid-2010, when Evans' move to New York to head the emerging markets drive meant that the firm's Asia chairman was not based in the region.

"The move to Beijing is very symbolic, and is similar to HSBC moving its CEO office to Hong Kong," said Ronald Wan, a managing director at China Merchants Securities (Hong Kong).

"They want to show a commitment to the China market, and probably improve ties with state-owned enterprises and the government."

While the firm stressed that this is a regional role, placing Schwartz in Beijing puts him in a position to bolster Goldman Sachs Gao Hua's efforts in China, and push key corporate and government relationships there.

Goldman faces several challenges in China, including renewed competition from foreign securities joint ventures and the rise of domestic investment banks and brokerages.

The firm is the top-ranked bank globally for China equity offerings worldwide year-to-date, though it is only 29th for listings in the onshore "A" share market, according to Thomson Reuters data. That ranking places it below many of its Western rivals, including Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and UBS.

LOCAL DIFFICULTIES

Foreign investment banks have found it difficult to make headway in China's onshore markets, with local firms using their deeper connections to win the lion's share of fees.

While Goldman Sachs has more control over its China operations than some rivals who arrived after a tightening of the ownership rules, the U.S. bank also suffers from not having total ownership of its China business.

The compensation structure of foreign banks also makes it harder for them to be profitable in China.

While Western firms need to chase big deals to cover the costs of their well-paid bankers, Chinese securities firms originate business using large teams of lower-paid dealmakers who get a cut of the fee for success.

With fewer jumbo-sized mandates available as the big banks and state-owned industrial firms complete their IPOs, the fees are more evenly distributed among medium and small-sized companies that the Chinese underwriters are better suited to execute.

"That's our biggest competitive advantage," said Dan Weil, global head of institutional sales and trading at Guosen Securities, the top-ranked China equity house year-to-date.

"We have 500 bankers, but we're not paying them $1 million each just to walk through door. They get paid on success. That enables the firm to have reach."

Part of the strategy behind locating Schwartz in Beijing will be to use his seniority to win more deals, in a market where bankers say clients put particular emphasis on the rank of the person pitching to them.

STRONGER FOOTING

Goldman is on a stronger footing in Asia-Pacific investment banking overall, having closed 2011 as the second-ranked firm in the region by fees and market share according to Thomson Reuters data, behind UBS.

This year, when completed listings have been thin on the ground, it won roles on some of the more high profile attempted listings, including Formula One and Graff Diamonds.

In Asia excluding Japan M&A advisory year-to-date, Goldman is top-ranked so far with 39 announced deals worth a combined $33 billion.

Schwartz's role will see him oversee all of the firm's business in Asia, encompassing asset management, private wealth management and securities trading in addition to investment banking.

While he is the first sole Asia Pacific chairman of a global investment bank to be based in Beijing, Morgan Stanley's Asia Pacific Co-CEO Wei Sun Christianson is there. Morgan Stanley has no regional chairman.

Schwartz is a Goldman Sachs veteran, having joined the firm in 1979 in the investment banking division. He was named a partner in the firm in 1988.

His career at Goldman Sachs saw him work in fixed income and then run the capital markets division from 1991 to 1997, before a move to Tokyo to become president of the Japan business. He held the title of chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia from 1999 to 2001.

On leaving Goldman at the end of that stint in 2001, Schwartz worked for Soros Fund Management, first as an adviser and then as president and CEO from 2003 to 2004.

Since 2006, Schwartz has been the chairman of MissionPoint Capital Partners, an investment firm he co-founded, which is focused on the transition to a lower carbon economy.

(Additional reporting by Michael Flaherty and Kelvin Soh; Editing by Alex Richardson)

On Facebook and Twitter, activists called for a big turnout at "The March of the Millions", the first major protest since Putin was sworn in on May 7, a day after police searched the homes of opposition leaders in raids Kremlin critics said were reminiscent of methods used by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

"Everyone in Moscow! If you don't want to live in a dictatorship, like we did before, then (come to the rally)," Twitter user Lyapis Trubetskoy posted. On Facebook, more than 6,500 people said they would attend.

The protest will begin without top opposition leaders who were summoned to appear before federal investigators just before the start of the march and rally to face questions over violence at a protest on the eve of Putin's inauguration.

"The questioning is a stupid formality aimed exclusively at preventing us from speaking at the demonstration," Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger and vocal Putin critic, said before entering the federal Investigative Committee building.

A lawyer for leftist leader Sergei Udaltsov said his client would ignore the summons and attend the rally instead.

After tolerating the biggest protests of his 12-year rule while seeking election, the searches and summonses signal a harsher approach to dissent at the start of the former KGB officer Putin's new term as president.

On Friday, he signed a law increasing fines, in some cases more than 100-fold, for violations of public order at demonstrations, despite warnings from his human rights council that it was an unconstitutional infringement on free assembly.

Law enforcement officers delivered the summonses during searches of the homes of leaders including Navalny, Udaltsov and socialite Ksenia Sobchak on Monday.

Police and investigators raided their Moscow apartments on a sleepy morning in the middle of a three-day weekend, seizing computer drives and discs, photographs and other belongings as armed guards stood outside.

"People barged in at 8 a.m., gave me no chance to get dressed, robbed the apartment, humiliated me," Sobchak said in a Twitter post. "I never thought we would return to such repression in this country."

"They rifled through everything, every wardrobe, in the toilet, in the refrigerator. They searched under the beds," Udaltsov, who was summoned for questioning along with his wife on Tuesday, told reporters of the search of their home.

Police left Navalny's apartment 13 hours after they entered, carrying boxes. Navalny emerged later and told reporters the summons was clearly aimed to keep him from the rally but vowed that he would attend.

In power since 2000, Putin won a third presidential term in March despite a series of protests that drew tens of thousands into the streets, angry over alleged fraud in a December parliamentary election won by his United Russia party.

Many protesters were middle-class city dwellers who have benefited from the oil-fuelled boom Russia has experienced during Putin's years at the helm but want more say in politics and fear his prolonged rule will bring economic stagnation.

"SCARE TACTICS"

Police largely left those earlier protests alone but began to crack down after Putin's election, beating protesters at the rally on May 6 and repeatedly dispersing groups trying to set up Occupy-style camps since then, briefly detaining hundreds.

They have detained 12 people over violence at the May 6 protest on charges punishable by more than a year in jail, and the latest summonses seemed to carry the implicit threat that opposition leaders could potentially face similar charges.

Monday's searches sparked a wave of angry comment.

"Vova is crazy," one Twitter user wrote, referring to Putin by the common nickname for Vladimir. Others messaged under the tag that translates as "hello1937" - a reference to the deadliest year of Stalin's repression.

"What we are witnessing today is in essence the year 1937," opposition activist Yevgenia Chirikova said at an emergency meeting in a cramped office to discuss plans for the protest. She said the searches and summonses were clearly a scare tactic.

Udaltsov predicted it would backfire.

"Some people may get scared, but people are less frightened now" following the winter protests, he told reporters. "They are more active, and I think even more people will come than had initially planned to.

"They are digging themselves a pit - deeper and deeper."

(Writing by Steve Gutterman; editing by Elizabeth Piper)