Deloitte adds seven to corporate finance team

Grassi was head of HSBC's consumer services group. He was one of the first victims of a shake-out at the UK bank following the appointment of John Studzinski from Morgan Stanley as co-chairman of investment banking in March 2003.

Grassi left the bank last year and joins as a director in Deloitte's consumer business team. It is his first job since leaving HSBC.

Gareth Taylor, former head of corporate development at National Express, the UK coach operator, also joins as a director. Before National Express, he spent seven years with Merrill Lynch and Barings. Dan Martin, who worked for three years at Morgan Stanley before moving to Ernst and Young's media team, joins as an assistant director.

Richard Maynard, Elaine Ray, Chris Soberg and Adam Worraker have joined as executives.

Deloitte's corporate finance business suffered a blow when it lost a 16-strong private equity team, including the highly rated Rustom Kharegat, to rival KPMG this year.

Deloitte wins most of its corporate finance business from the small to middle market, but has recently worked on several larger transactions. These include the 860m (€1.2bn) acquisition of Linpac, the UK packaging group, in June last year and last month's €1.3bn ($1.6bn) sale of Saga, the travel-to-insurance group for the over-50s.