Kirk Wilson joined independent investment bank Greenhill & Co. as a managing director. Wilson was a vice chairman of Morgan Stanley's investment banking division, where he worked for 26 years. He has been a senior member of Morgan Stanley's financial institutions group and previously headed the global commercial bank group as well as the U.S. bank group. He will focus on financial services at Greenhill.

Earlier this week, the firm hired John Paynter as a senior adviser to expand its advisory activities. Paynter retired as vice chairman of J.P. Morgan Cazenove Ltd. in 2008. He is a non-executive director of Standard Chartered plc and Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc.

Kenneth Goldman was also tapped as a senior adviser. He is senior vice president and chief financial officer of Fortinet Inc. From August 2000 to March 2006, Goldman was senior vice president of finance and administration and CFO of Siebel Systems Inc., which Oracle Corp. acquired in January 2006.

Also in March, Greenhill said it was launching a financing advisory and restructuring group. Andrew Kramer, who was head of restructuring for the Americas at UBS, will join as a managing director in New York. Kramer also worked at Credit Suisse Group. Ken Goldsbrough, formerly a managing director and head of media, communications and entertainment at GE Capital Corp. in London, has joined as a managing director. Before GE, he spent 16 years at Banque Paribas SA.

Jean-Bernard Lafonta will step down as CEO of Wendel SA, which suffered a sharp profit decline. The investment firm was saddled with debt after its 2007 acquisition of a 21% stake in French building materials giant Cie. de Saint-Gobain SA. On April 15, Frédéric Lemoine, who joined the supervisory board of Wendel in June, will replace Lafonta.

Lemoine has been chairman of the supervisory board of nuclear energy group Areva SA since 2005 and will step down from that role. He also chairs the audit committee, is a director at French insurer Groupama and is a senior adviser to McKinsey & Co. Lemoine was a vice president at Cap Gemini Group in charge of finance. From June 2002 to May 2004, he was France's deputy general secretary for economic affairs in the administration of then-President Jacques Chirac.

Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch made two analyst hires in Canada. Financial services analyst Steve Theriault joins after 10 years with BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. In Toronto, metals analyst Oscar Cabrera arrived from Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he spent five years in New York.

Wells Fargo & Co., which acquired Wachovia Corp. in December, announced appointments in its investment banking and capital markets business. All will report to IBCM co-heads Jonathan Weiss and Rob Engel. John Hudson will lead consumer and healthcare; John Church, industrial growth and services; James Kipp, energy and power; Jim Broner, technology, media and telecom; Scott Heberton and Jim Sigman, the financial institutions group.

Brian Van Elslander will lead the financial sponsors group, while Sam Farnham and Mike Rosenberg will co-lead the middle-market group.

The following leaders were named in the capital markets and mergers and acquisitions advisory businesses: Frank Pizzo, loan syndications and high-yield capital markets; Billy Ingram, investment-grade debt capital markets; John Laughlin, advisory-M&A; and Andy Sanford, equity capital markets. Rosenberg and Pizzo were with Wells Fargo before the merger, while the rest came in from Wachovia.

Houlihan, Lokey, Howard & Zukin Inc. hired Paul Sanabria and Jeff Hammer as managing directors to focus on the secondary market for partnerships and private investments held by institutional investors. Previously, they were senior managing directors at Bear, Stearns & Co. They are based in New York, reporting to Bob Hotz and Scott Adelson, global co-heads of investment banking.

Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP added business arbitration and litigation attorney Marc Henry as a partner in Paris. He was previously a partner with Lovells LLP.

Law firms Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP and Watson & Band, based in Shanghai, said they have formed a strategic alliance to serve clients with business between the U.S. and China.

Wilmington, Del., firm Connolly Bove Lodge & Hutz LLP announced a series of appointments. Jonathan Darcy and Louis Heidelberger, a former chair of the intellectual property group of Reed Smith LLP, and internal candidates Jennifer Fraser and Aaron Ettelman were elected partners. Fraser is also now chair of the firm's trademark and copyrights section, with fellow IP partner Scott Miller named as vice chair.

Six new associates are also joining the firm's IP group: Daniel Attaway, Charles Chesney, Tamika Crawl-Bey, Peter Jay, Thatcher Rahmeier and Young Tang.

Separately, the firm said Jerome Miraglia, Kelly Conlan and N. Christopher Griffiths joined the business law group. Miraglia, former president of Labrador Mobile Inc., joins as of counsel.

Conlan was an associate with Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell LLP. Griffiths is also an associate.