Jobs roundup: Hiring in fund management and private equity

Hiring by investment banks was predictably subdued during the Christmas and New Year break. However fund management and private equity provided some activity.

Threadneedle, the fund management arm of American Express, continued its recent hiring spree by appointing Philip Dicken as a small caps analyst on its London equity team. Dicken came from the fund management group Active Value Investors. His appointment followed three equity hires at Threadneedle in October.

Mellon Global Investments hired Jonathan Lubran from Schroders as a new head of UK institutional sales.

Hewitt Bacon and Woodrow, the investment consultant, hired two consultants for its London office in advance of the coming retirement of Nick Fitzpatrick, its head of global investment.

Star Capital Partners, a European private equity fund, appointed four people to run its Private Finance Initiative (PFI) fund, which it acquired in December.

Among investment banks, Merrill Lynch hired Cristina Garcia-Peri as a managing director and head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) corporate equity derivatives.

Garcia-Peri joined from JP Morgan Chase, where she was head of EMEA corporate equity derivatives. She worked at JP Morgan for 12 years

Bear Stearns lost Olivier Favre-Gilly, its head of European equity capital markets, when his three-year bonus package expired. Favre-Gilly's exit followed that of Michael Phair, global head of telecoms mergers and acquisitions. Phair left earlier in December after his $5m (4.1m euros) a year package also expired.

Both were hired at the height of the dotcom boom, when guaranteed bonuses were easier to come by. Since then, Bear Stearns has cut its European investment banking employees from 110 to around 40.