European jobs roundup: UBS, Julius Baer fill gaps

There have been several high profile moves in the past week, some of them replacing staff who left last year.

Julius Baer, the Swiss bank and asset manager, brought in Roman von Ah, a former chief executive of Swissca Portfolio Management, as head of asset management. Von Ah replaces Veit Schuhen, who left in September following a row over strategy.

Julius Baer also hired Thomas Gruenenfelder from Swissca as head of global equities.

UBS poached Stephen Wong, a senior debt specialist, from Lehman Brothers. At UBS Wong will work in the collateralised debt obligation (CDO) group as an executive director and debt structurer based in London. His arrival follows the departure in October of Dan Cook, head of European asset-backed securitisation, who had focused on CDOs.

Merrill Lynch looked internally to fill a hole created by the departure of Michael Jones, head of UK retail. The bank said Richard Royds, marketing director for Europe, the Middle East and Asia, will assume Jones' role, as well as retaining his current position.

There were a few high profile departures lastc week. Martin Wheatley, deputy chief executive of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) quit after 18 years. Wheatley is understood to be negotiating a severance deal worth 1m (€1.45m). Unlike the banks, the LSE said it would not look for a replacement.

Other exits included that of Jim Best, executive director of UBS Wealth Management, and Simon Wombwell, head of UK fund marketing at Mellon investments.

Société Générale maintained its efforts to become a weighty presence in pan-European debt. It hired Giovanni Lazzeri from ABN Amro as a director in its Italian securitisation team. This followed last week's recruitment by SG of Antonio Guadagnino from Lehman to focus on Italian corporate debt origination.

SG also boosted its credit sales team, promoting Michel Granchi, a credit trader, to director of credit sales in London focusing on hedge funds.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management made seven appointments to its European teams, most of them external hires. The seven were a new fixed income fund manager, a credit analyst, a fixed income portfolio constructor and four new sales and marketing staff for its offshore funds business.