Troika's still hiring to compete with VTB

As we’ve reported several times, VTB is hiring - particularly internationally. It’s said it wants to increase its international headcount by 120 people over the next few years.

Troika Dialog/Sberbank doesn’t want to be left behind. Late last year, it said it wanted to hire 100 investment bankers this year, increasing its headcount 40% in the process. This week, it made three big investment banking hires.

Bloomberg reported Troika poached Steve Kale, former head of Citigroup’s equity capital markets origination team for Russia, as head of its equity syndicate group. It also hired David Theys who was formerly at Arma Partners, a London corporate finance firm, as its head of telecommunications, media and technology banking. And it hired Dmitry Zubatyuk, formerly of Renaissance Capital, as a director for its oil and gas business.

It’s not clear whether the staff concerned were paid big guaranteed bonuses to induce them to join, but we suspect this may have been so in the case of Kale at least.