This top BAML investment banker in New York has just leapt to RBC Capital Markets

RBC Capital Markets has been steadily hiring in some senior investment bankers from larger rivals over the course of 2017, and has just brought in a mid-market specialist from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML).

Kurt Kovalick, a managing director in BAML’s investment banking division who focuses on mid-market deals, has just moved across to RBC Capital Markets as a managing director in M&A.

Kovalick spent nearly four years working at BAML until his departure in July, advising on some prominent deals like GE’s $11.5bn sale of its plastics business to Saudi Arabian Basic Industries, and 3M’s $1.2bn acquisition of Aearo. He moved from Barclays, where he was also a managing director in M&A in New York, switching across to the bank from Lehman Brothers following Barclays’ acquisition of its U.S. operation in September 2008.

Kovalick started out as a project manager in the United States Airforce, but moved into banking following the completion of an MBA at Columbia Business School in 1999.

RBC Capital Markets also hired former BAML and KBW managing director Neil Chawhan to its investment banking division in New York in May, while Shane Kovacs, a former Credit Suisse investment banker who was latterly CFO biotech firm PTC Therapeutics, and Nate Chang, head of West Coast healthcare at Credit Suisse, both joined as managing directors in healthcare M&A in April.

There have been departures, though. Peter Ma, a managing director in its M&A team in New York, left for BMO Capital Markets earlier this month.

Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

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