European jobs roundup: Nomura and Lazard on hiring trail

There was good tidings for private equity specialists in the past week, provided by Lazard, and even better tidings for fixed income traders, provided by Nomura.

Graham Keniston-Cooper, who was recruited last month to head the new private equity management team at Lazard, said he was in the process of hiring one private equity partner and up to five investment managers before June.

Nomura said it would hire 40 bankers for its London fixed income team as part of an expansion of capacity in the high grade trading of dollar and euro denominated bonds. As a first step, Nomura hired Gavin Jackson, a former BNP Paribas and Merrill Lynch banker, as head of Eurobond high grade trading.

Meanwhile there were ripples of recruitment activity in the German market. Merrill Lynch hired Magnus von Schlieffen as head of equity business in Germany and Austria. Von Schlieffen, who will take up the post in July, will replace Gebhard Klingenstein, who is retiring.

SG hired two Frankfurt bankers to strengthen its leveraged debt team. Joachim Erdle joined as a vice president from Landesbank Baden Württemberg in Stuttgart. Hans Twietmeyer joined from the Royal Bank of Scotland, where he was an analyst on the Frankfurt leveraged debt team.

In London there were two unexpected job moves as senior bankers opted for new careers in public service. Citigroup's London office lost Takis Aropoglou, who left to become chairman and governor of the National Bank of Greece. Aropoglou was a senior M&A banker.

Hector Sants, chief executive of Europe, the Middle East and Africa at CSFB, left to join the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in the UK. Sants will be managing director of the FSA's wholesale and institutional markets division. His salary will be 300,000 a year.

Fund managers were in hiring mode. Steve Nicholls, a director in the fixed income team at UBS Global Asset Management, left to join Pimco, the bond subsidiary of the German insurer Allianz.

Schroders hired Adam Cordery from Invesco as a fund manager for UK retail and corporate bond funds. Fortis Investments appointed Peter De Proft as chief executive for Belgium. De Proft was a director of Banque Nagelmackers.