Sovereign Bancorp Inc. of Reading, Pa., named Paul Perrault president and CEO, effective Jan. 3. He replaces Joseph Campanelli, who is leaving to pursue family and other business interests. Campanelli took the job in October 2006 from 17-year CEO Jay Sidhu, who was ousted after several deals hurt the bank's stock price. Perrault (pictured) joins Sovereign from Chittenden Corp., where he had been CEO since 1990 and both chairman and CEO from 1998 to 2007.

Also, at the now-largest U.S. savings and loan, Kirk Walters, executive vice president and chief financial officer, was promoted to senior executive vice president, chief financial officer and chief administrative officer. He will begin serving as interim president and CEO until Perrault joins the bank. Walters, who joined Sovereign in March, was executive vice president and CFO at Chittenden.

In January, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s Bob Elfring will join Credit Suisse Group as head of Benelux for the investment banking department. Managing director Elfring will work from London and report to Jim Amine, global co-head of investment banking. Elfring was global co-head of the industrials group at Lehman.

According to an internal memo, Elfring recently advised Staples Inc. on its public offer for Corporate Express NV, advised Tele Atlas NV on its sale to TomTom NV and Hagemeyer NV on the sales of assets to Rexel SA and Sonepar SA.

In New York, Evercore Partners Inc. tapped Ray Newton III senior managing director in its private equity group, Evercore Capital Partners. Newton, who spent 10 years at Perseus LLC, will serve on the investment committee of ECP alongside James Matthews, Neeraj Mital and Kathleen Reiland. Matthews and Newton have known each other for 14 years and worked together at J. H. Whitney & Co. from 1994 to 1998.

Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking hired Kelly Broadhurst as a senior institutional salesperson, focused on marketing to U.S. long-only asset managers that use equity derivatives for their core investments. She reports to Thomas Droumenq, head of U.S. flow sales and the hedge fund group in New York. Broadhurst spent 13 years at UBS in a similar sales role, covering traditional asset managers.

Other related hires this year include: Brad Belsky from UBS, who trades S&P options and variance swaps; Eric Nelson, from Jefferies & Co., who handles ETFs and ETF options trading; and Jeremy Wien, who joined from Goldman, Sachs & Co. and manages Vix options trading.

Latin American investment banking group MBA Lazard opened an advisory office in Lima, Peru, and hired Augusto Barreto as a managing director to lead the effort.

Barreto arrives from Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in Lima, where he was responsible for investment banking coverage for South America, excluding Brazil. Before that, he worked in New York for Citigroup and Salomon Smith Barney. MBA Lazard is the joint venture between Lazard and MBA Group, parent company of MBA Banco de Inversiones.

Kirkland & Ellis LLP hired Charles Clark for its Washington office as a partner. Clark joins the firm from Capital One Financial Corp., where he was managing vice president and chief counsel of litigation. Before that, he was assistant director at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, division of enforcement.

Fish & Richardson PC opened an office in Houston and recruited three patent litigators as principals: David Healey, Garland Stephens and Anita Kadala. Stephens will be managing principal of the new office. All were previously partners with Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP.

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP made labor and employment lawyer Grace Speights managing partner of its Washington office. Speights was a summer associate at Morgan Lewis in 1981, joined Morgan Lewis as an associate in 1984 and made partner in 1991.

Latham & Watkins LLP said Kirt Switzer is joining its tax department as a partner in the firm's San Francisco and Silicon Valley offices. He advises on the tax aspects of mergers and acquisitions, private equity and restructuring transactions. Switzer joins from the transaction advisory services group of Ernst & Young LLP, where he practiced since 2002.

Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP named eight principals and four directors. Principals include Los Angeles-based Debra Baker, corporate investigations; Paul Chill in Atlanta, tangible asset valuation; New Yorker Manish Choudhary, business valuation; Samir Hans, of New York, analytic and forensic technology; Jeff Kennedy, business valuation in Houston; Kamran Masood, corporate investigations in New York; Prateep Menon of New York, business valuation; and Atlanta-based Jimmy Peterson, business valuation.

The directors are Stephen Fattore of Chicago, business valuation; Dallas corporate investigator Randy Jordan; New York-based Piero Molinario, anti-money laundering/economic and trade sanctions; and John Solomon, real estate consulting in Washington.