European jobs roundup: Hiring in private equity
Directly or indirectly, private equity and venture capital (VC) funds were behind many job moves in the past week. Meanwhile some investment banks struggled to stem a tide of departures.
Fund moves were atypical of the sector. Benchmark Capital, a technology investor, recruited Johan Brenner, a Swedish entrepreneur, to become fifth partner in its London office. VCs typically recruit from consulting or investing, but Benchmark has a history of recruiting entrepreneurs.
A partner at a private equity fund also broke with tradition and left for the corporate sector. Ken Hanna at the London office of Compass Partners said he was joining Cadbury Schweppes as chief financial officer. The move raised eyebrows: corporate executives are usually keen to move into private equity, which offers substantially higher rewards.
BNP Paribas also made a private equity related hire. The French bank snapped up Simon Godwin, a former Schroders banker, as a member of its corporate finance team. Godwin had been working as a part-time consultant at Hawkpoint, an advisory boutique.
At BNP Paribas he will focus on private equity transactions. The move reflects general expectations that private equity firms will take more firms to market in 2004.
The picture looked less clear at Bear Stearns last week. Following last month's departure of the head of European equity capital markets, global co-head of telecoms M&A and head of European M&A, the bank also lost its head of international operations. Jeremy Sillen, head of Bear Stearns international, said he was leaving after serving out his contract.
Departures were more localised at Morgan Stanley. The US bank has been losing staff from its London convertibles sales and trading team; last week was no exception.
Morgan Stanley announced that Bill Casey, head of international convertible sales, was switching to another area of the bank and that both Yusaf Khan, a senior convertibles proprietary trader, and Jack Inlgis, overall head of international convertible bond sales and trading, were leaving. Khan is joining Oz Capital Management, a hedge fund.
There were other movements in hedge funds. Lazard Asset Management poached Robert Rowland from Soros Fund Management. Rowland is to launch a European long/short equity hedge fund for Lazard, whose hedge fund assets under management have plunged following last year's departure of its star manager William Von Mueffling and most of his team.
Fixed income hiring remained robust. Bank of America appointed five sales and trading specialists and a structurer to its London fixed income and derivatives team. Morgan Stanley recruited Simon Parry-Wingfield, a former managing director in the leveraged finance group at Goldman Sachs, to join its leveraged finance team in London.
