European jobs roundup: Banks hire in France
France was a focus of investment bank hiring activity in the past week. There was good news too for high yield specialists in London.
Bankers in Paris had reason to celebrate the arrival of Mediobanca, the Italian investment bank. Mediobanca announced the opening of a Paris office, its first outside Italy, and to staff the new venture it plans to hire 10 investment bankers headed by Marc Vincent, who resigned in February as head of Citigroup France.
Also in Paris, Bank of America hired Jean Noël Hénon as a principal responsible for building client relationships in the Benelux region. In London, Bank of America hired two additional bankers for its European corporate and investment banking unit. John Bigham joined the M&A team as a principal in execution and origination, from Deutsche Bank. Anthony Fitzpatrick, from Goldman Sachs, joined the general industrial group to focus on chemicals companies.
Promisingly for German bankers, Hypovereinsbank announced plans to merge its 50-analyst strong research divisions into one global markets research team. The new team will be headed by Thorsten Weinelt, former head of credit research. The bank said it would strengthen its coverage of credit derivatives, structured credit products, cross asset class products, and German mid and small caps. A spokesperson, said this will involve hiring a 'handful' of additional people
In London, high yield specialists will soon be sought by Prebon Marshall Yamane, the interdealer broker. It hired Micheal Noonan from US broker Seidel & Shaw to lead its push into high yield. Noonan is expected to recruit around four more people in the next 12 months.
Other significant moves in London included Morgan Stanley's hiring of Patrick Wellington, a
top-rated media analyst, from Citigroup.
Barclays Capital hired Guglielmo Sartori di Borgoricco, co-head of fixed income distribution at CSFB, for a newly created role as head of European distribution. CSFB does not plan to fill the gap with a new hire, but to promote Simon Meadows, co-head with Sartori di Borgoricco, as sole head of the division.
Goldman Sachs continued to lose staff from its prime brokerage division. Bernard Minsky, executive director of international prime brokerage, left for International Asset Management, a fund of hedge funds. Minsky was also responsible for the lending policies for hedge fund clients, and co-head of firm-wide risk in Europe.
Alex Ehrlich, managing director of global securities services at Goldman Sachs, left the firm in 2003 to join UBS and was followed by other Goldman staff.
There were several moves in fund management. Axa investment managers hired two fixed income fund managers: Gareth Isaac and Jamie Grant, from Newton Investment Management and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia respectively.
SEI Investments hired two directors of business development in global private banking to work under Francis Jackson, director in global private banking services. The firm is developing a new wealth management service which should be available later this year.
It emerged that several senior staff are to leave Aegon Asset Management following a review of its underperforming equities fund. Departees include Wendy Hay, UK chief investment officer, John Smelt, head of a research team and Jackie Bowe, a technology fund manager. Hay will leave later this year after a planned maternity leave.
