
After closing its acquisition, Bank of America Corp. is leaking Merrill Lynch & Co. bankers. The latest: A dealmaking dozen have defected to Deutsche Bank AG's financial institutions group in the global banking division. Four senior hires are Eric Heaton, David Heaton, Richard Slimmon and Richard Gibb. Eric and David join as managing directors in New York, while Slimmon and Gibb will arrive as managing directors in London and Hong Kong, respectively.
Also in New York, Seth Heaton and Venkat Badinehal will join as managing directors along with director Jason Braunstein.
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Eric Heaton (pictured) was most recently treasurer for Merrill Lynch.
Prior to that role, he was co-head of Americas financial institutions,
specializing in depository institutions. David Heaton was head of
global asset management investment banking at Merrill, while Slimmon
was a senior banker in the European financial institutions investment
banking group. Gibb was head of financial institutions, Asia-Pacific
and Australia in addition to serving as head of the financial sponsors
group for Asia-Pacific at Merrill.
Seth Heaton, Badinehal and
Braunstein all served in the FIG investment banking group at Merrill, where they
covered U.S. depository institutions, including regional and
super-regional banks as well as U.S. affiliates of European banks.
The group of 12 also includes vice presidents and associates. The post-acquisition ex-Merrill list
is led by former CEO John Thain, but also includes:
- Daniel Markaity and Christopher Bury, who joined Jefferies & Co. as co-heads of the fixed-income rates business;
- former president and chief operating officer Gregory Fleming, who went to his alma mater Yale; and
- Robert McCann, who was vice chairman and president of the prized global wealth management division at Merrill.
A Reuters report
claims that Chris Jolly, one of Britain's highest-profile real estate investment bankers, will also leave Merrill. Also, BofA said Kim Hong, chief risk officer in the Asia Pacific region, would
replace Nelson Chai as president of the region.
We
didn't get word on how big a financial incentive the bankers were
given, but both Merrill and Deutsche are cutting bonuses. New York
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo may
demand Merrill employees to return $4 billion in bonuses. Meanwhile Deutsche Bank is
reportedly going to cut the bonus pool in its securities unit by 60%. -
Baz Hiralal
Comments
I think anyone who jumps ship should be blacklisted from any further work in any American trading or finance companies. What is really unbelievable, is that they are still being offered jobs after their involvement in destabilizing the markets.