Fancy French boutique bank hires senior banker after six month break
Les vacances are over. In France, people are back in the office, and this includes a senior banker who's been on the beach for longer than most.
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Fabien De Smet was the head of investment banking for continental Europe at Berenberg until he was placed at risk in a round of job cuts in November 2023. He officially left in February 2024, but now he's back. - De Smet has joined Altamoda, the Paris-based M&A boutique run by former Rothschild Grégoire Heuzé.
De Smet's very long vacation is understood to have involved a period of gardening leave, followed by a summer holiday with his family. He's joined Altamoda as a managing director in the Paris office.
Founded in 2021 after Heuzé left US boutique Centerview just seven months after joining, Altamoda now has eight bankers and two executive assistants according to its own website. De Smet will presumably slot in beneath Heuzé and Stéphane Zeghbib, a former Morgan Stanley and Zaoui & Co. banker who joined as a partner last June.
As we observed last year, Altamoda seems to have a thing for hiring graduates of elite French educational institutions. Zeghib went to École Polytechnique. Heuzé went to Sciences Po. De Smet is an off-piste option and attended Ichec in Brussels.
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