U.S. Jobs' Roundup: HSBC poaches for FIG, BarCap heads for the coasts

Last week saw a trickle of hiring in financial institutions across the U.S. as holiday season reached its peak. Most active were non-U.S. institutions.

HSBC Asset Management poached Gregg Diliberto from Citigroup Asset Management to replace Peter Smith as head of the investment house's global fixed income group. Smith left HSBC last month after four years managing a 70-strong team and $100bn in assets.

Barclays Capital, the investment banking division of Barclays PLC, appointed Peter Toolan in New York as a director of the corporate risk management and derivatives management team. He will be responsible for marketing and structuring work to corporate clients across several product areas including interest rates, currencies, commodities and credit derivatives. Toolan joins the firm from Merrill Lynch.

At the other end of the country, Barclays Capital lured three fixed income sales executives away from Lehman Brothers. Granger Tripp, Peter Bjursten and Alicia Van Oast have joined the firm's institutional fixed income sales effort in San Francisco.

Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, the U.S. Private Client Services division of Deutsche Bank Securities, hired Larry Burns as a director responsible for serving the needs of Houston area middle market institutional clients and high net worth individuals. The bank also hired Scott Ashmore as a vice president responsible for providing financial solutions to high net worth individuals. Based in Houston, Burns and Ashmore join from Smith Barney.

Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM) announced the appointment of Richard Smith as director and product specialist in the enhanced strategies and mutual funds group. He will be responsible for overall product management of non-insurance taxable fixed income institutional mandates as well as mutual funds. Smith joined DeAM from MFS Investment Management.

BNP Paribas appointed Matthew Schultheis as a director and head of sales for its Chicago office. Schultheis joins the firm from Credit Suisse First Boston, Chicago.

ING Private Banking, the wealth management arm of ING Group, the Dutch financial services group, poached two senior staff from Rival Julius Baer in New York. Jorge Suarez-Velez joins as global head of private wealth management and Carlos Peraza as chief investment officer. Both specialise in Latin American markets. Suarez-Velez will take responsibility for ING's existing Latin American private banking activities in Argentina, Venezuela, Chile and Curacao, as well as focusing on developing new business in Brazil and Mexico where the group already has a sizeable insurance and asset management business.

Among home-grown institutions, Wachovia named Susan Certoma chief information officer for its corporate and investment banks. Certoma will be responsible for leading the overall technology activities for the corporate and investment banking divisions. She joins from Goldman Sachs where she was vice president leading the global sales technology organization.

Banc of America Securities (BAS) hired David B. Platt as a principal in the

corporate sale & divestiture (CSD) group. Platt is based in New York. Immediately

prior to joining BAS, he was a director in the M&A corporate sale and divestiture division of Citigroup Global Markets.

Thomas R. Wright has joined Sanford C. Bernstein & Co, the institutional research services group of investment firm Alliance Capital Management, as senior vice president and head of global trading. Wright joins Bernstein after spending 10 years with Merrill Lynch, most recently as head of U.S. equity trading and sales trading.

Greg Parseghian, who stepped down as chief executive Freddie Mac last December after steering the U.S. government-sponsored mortgage lender into calmer waters following an accounting scandal, emerged at DebtX, a commercial loan sale advisory company. Parseghian will play an advisory role spearheading the marketing and development strategy for DX Mark, a new DebtX product aimed at risk managers and credit policy executives that estimates the value of commercial real estate loans.