US jobs roundup: Equity analysts still popular

With exactly a year since top US banks agreed to pay $1.4b to settle government charges of biased research, several banks were hiring equity analysts last week.

Banc of America Securities hired Anatol Feygin as a vice president and senior equity research analyst in its New York office. Feygin joined after seven years at JP Morgan, where he was a senior analyst covering natural gas, pipeline and energy distribution companies.

Sandler O'Neill & Partners, the investment banking firm specializing in financial services companies, recruited Laura Kaster as a vice president in equity research group. Based in the Chicago office, Kaster will cover companies in the non-bank financial sector. She joins from Piper Jaffray, where she covered a similar sector.

Piper Jaffray shuffled its consumer equities research team at its Minneapolis head office. Mitch Kaiser, a research analyst in food processing and distribution was promoted to vice president and senior research analyst covering retail and consumer product companies. Neely Tamminga, a research analyst in specialty retail was promoted to a similar position covering women's and luxury goods companies.

Other banks to have hired US-based equity researchers during the past month include: Leerink Swann & Company, Deutsche Bank securities, Merriman Curhan Ford, and Jefferies & Company.

There was also recruitment in the real estate sector. Merrill Lynch hired Thomas Saylak, a real estate executive at the Blackstone Group, the private equity firm. Saylak joins Merrill's New York office, where he will head global real estate investing.

Deutsche Bank Securities recruited Jeff Sturdevant as managing director and head of commercial mortgage-backed bond trading in its real estate debt markets group in New York. Studevant joins from Citigroup.

Elsewhere, Harcourt Investment Consulting, the Swiss fund of funds business, hired Neil Paragiri to manage its US operations. Paragiri joined from Measurisk, a US risk management firm.

Credit Suisse First Boston hired three new operating executives for its DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, its private equity arm. Ron Beegle, James Finkelstein and Larry Pickering joined as chairman of global consumer and retail investors, chairman of global media partners, and chairman of the global healthcare partners divisions respectively.