European jobs roundup: Hiring in M&A

There was plenty of movement in the corporate finance job market in the past week, perhaps reflecting growing optimism in the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) sector.

Last year, utilities companies were the most significant sources of European M&A. Citigroup may therefore regret the departure of six of its senior utilities bankers for Lexicon Partners, a UK corporate finance advisory boutique.

Lexicon hired Reed Gomm, head of utilities at Citigroup, and four colleagues: managing director Mark Connell, directors Andrew Donovon and Hichem Zebidi, and vice president Marcus Thompson.

It transpired that another managing director, Dominic Freely, who left Citigroup at the end of December, will also be joining Lexicon.

Goldman Sachs lost David Livingstone to HSBC, where he will be head of the corporate finance and advisory unit. Livingstone had been with Goldman for 16 years and was managing director and head of the European general industrials group. HSBC has been building its corporate finance division under John Studzinski, who joined in March from Morgan Stanley as co-head of corporate, investment banking and markets.

Amid signs that technology M&A is making a comeback, Linklaters, the law firm, hired Tim Schwartz from Clifford Chance as a telecoms partner in its global IT and communications team. Last week CSFB completed the biggest UK technology IPO since the technology crash of 2001.

In Italy, Francesco Silva, former head of Italian operations at JP Morgan, joined E Capital Partners, an Italian M&A and asset management advisory firm, as chief executive. Silva left JP Morgan in 2002 to run a one-man M&A boutique, Sfera Consulting.

In the world beyond M&A, debt, emerging markets, and compliance also attracted recruiters' attention in the past week.

Deutsche Bank poached Zia Hugue, co-head of the European debt syndicate at Merrill Lynch, to run its European and Asia-Pacific debt team. The German bank also rehired David Lasky, who left in 2000 for CSFB. Lasky will join as an emerging market debt originator.

Standard Bank London, the investment banking arm of South Africa-based Standard Bank Group, made two senior sales and marketing hires. Rupert Boyd, head of emerging market sales at Morgan Stanley, joined as global head of sales and structuring. Michele Maffei, former emerging markets derivatives marketer at JP Morgan, joined as head of structured product marketing.

Barclays Capital hired a director in its global compliance sector, to be based in London. Trevor Mullin will join from Goldman Sachs, where he was head of global securities services compliance. Goldman hired its own global head of compliance in early February.

Charles Stonehill, global head of capital markets at Lazard, left the firm to pursue interests outside invstment banking. Elizabeth Corley, head of non-US retail business, left Merrill Lynch Investment Managers. The destination of Corley, a published author of crime fiction, is unknown; the plot thickens.