U.S. Jobs' Roundup: Key hires at Bear Stearns, Deutsche and Wachovia

Hiring was buoyant last week among investment banks and securities houses, large and small.

Bear Stearns made three appointments as part of its plan to boost its public finance business. Wendy Franklin joins from Goldman Sachs and will focus on developing financing for airport, highway, toll road and mass transit bond issuers. Michael James, previously with GE Capital, will concentrate on healthcare and higher education, and James H. Redd, Jr. will handle infrastructure financing projects that use derivative products. He joins from Legg Mason.

Deutsche Bank announced that Amin Majidi has joined the firm as head of U.S. mortgage strategy and co-head of mortgage research for the Americas. Majidi will lead a team of researchers alongside Gregg Patruno, head of mortgage modeling, focusing on quantitative and fundamental analysis of the U.S. mortgage market. Majidi joins from ABP Investments.

Wachovia Securities lured four leveraged finance specialists away from Banc of America Securities. Elton Vogel joins as managing director and co-head of leveraged finance origination, a position he will share with Eric Lloyd, formerly Head of Wachovia Securities' loan syndications group. The three members of Vogel's former team who also join from Banc of America are Gary Wolfe, Jim Jeffries, and K.C. Brechnitz.

JP Morgan Chase has hired Rick Lazio, former U.S. Congressman, as executive vice president for global government relations and public policy. Lazio is currently the president and chief executive officer of the Financial Services Forum, an organization promoting the development of an open and competitive financial services market. The firm also announced several internal changes. David Coulter, currently chairman of the investment bank and head of its private equity, global treasury, investment management and private banking businesses, will relocate to Los Angeles and become chairman for the West Coast at the end of this year. Dina Dublon, currently chief financial officer, will leave at year end to be replaced by Michael Cavanagh, currently head of middle market banking.

Fox-Pitt, Kelton, an investment bank specializing in financial institutions, announced two hires for its international equity sales team. Charles Myers and Andrew Sleeman will be senior vice presidents, providing sales coverage of the European product in the U.S. Myers will also assume responsibilities for management of the European and Asian sales teams. He joins from UBS Investment Bank and Sleeman joins from Exane BNP Paribas.

Piper Jaffray announced that Cobb Sadler has joined the firm as a vice president and senior research analyst covering data networking and wireline equipment. Sadler is based out of the firm's San Francisco office and joins from Banc of America Securities in New York.

T.J. Marta will join Royal Bank of Canada as senior currency strategist based in New York. He was previously senior currency analyst with Citigroup also based in New York. Marta is one of two New York-based foreign exchange strategists who left Citigroup over the summer. The other was Robert Sinche, Citigroup's former chief currency strategist, who is now head of global foreign exchange research and strategy with Bank of America.

Among regional investment banking appointments, Galen Capital Group, which specialises in working with middle market companies, announced that Michael J. Kane has joined the firm as a Managing Director and will lead Galen's new Nashville office.

Robert J. Glenn and William A. Jump III will join Memphis, Tennesee-based investment bank and brokerage house Morgan Keegan & Co. to develop an equity capital markets office for the firm in Atlanta. Both join from SunTrust Robinson Humphrey.

Asset management had a quieter hiring week. Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM) announced the appointment of Steve Lynch as Director and Sector Manager in the specialty fixed income group at DeAM. He was most recently at JP Morgan Fleming Asset Management in New York.

Nexstar Capital Partners, an emerging markets investment firm, announced that Peter J. Carril has joined the firm as a managing partner and will serve as the firm's Portfolio Manager. Prior to joining Nexstar, he was the global head of emerging markets debt trading at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.

Meritage Private Equity Funds, a Denver-based family of communications-oriented funds, announced the addition of Ryan Pollock. He was previously business development manager of Investec Asset Management, based in London.