Jefferies bolsters energy banking team by hiring MD from BNP Paribas

Jefferies is hiring senior investment bankers in the U.S. and has continued this trend by brining in John Bills as a managing director in the power, utilities and renewables group in the bank’s New York headquarters.

He was poached from BNP Paribas, where he was a managing director and previously the head of power and structured transactions. Before joining BNP Paribas in 2012, Bills was head of structured transactions at Credit Agricole, and also spent a stint working for Barclays in New York. Before starting out in banking, he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy for five years.

He's another senior recruit at Jefferies in the U.S. this year. In January, Jefferies poached managing directors Paul Cugno from Barclays and Shaun Westfall from Piper Jaffray. The former works in the bank’s energy leveraged finance division in New York, while the latter is in consumer investment banking in San Francisco.

In December, Jefferies hired Mark Siconolfi as a managing director and the global head of power, renewables and infrastructure M&A from Goldman Sachs, where he worked for close to eight years and was a managing director and the U.S. head of power and utility M&A. Previously, Siconolfi cut his teeth in the power and utility group at Lazard.

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