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by Baz Hiralal
Partner Chris Rokos of London-based hedge fund Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP will leave the firm he co-founded in 2002 at the end of the month. He is a trader on the $25 billion flagship Master Fund. Rokos previously spent four years at Credit Suisse Group and four at Goldman, Sachs & Co., where he was a swap trader.
Co-founders Jean-Philippe Blochet and James Vernon left in 2009 and 2011, respectively. The last of the founding partners are Alan Howard and Trifon Natsis. Howard worked with Rokos at Credit Suisse, where he was head of proprietary trading.
U.K. funds-of-hedge-funds manager Permal Group enlisted Katie Jupp as institutional business manager. Jupp previously spent two years at Sussex Partners, where she was an associate director. Before that, Jupp was a product manager at AXA Investment Managers and had stints at F&C Asset Management, Cedar Partners and Standard & Poor's.
Janney Montgomery Scott LLC hired Jeff Smith as a senior vice president and branch manager of the firm's Washington office.
In 2004, Smith joined Legg Mason Inc. as director of sales for the central division, where he managed the Tyson's Corner, Va., office. Following the acquisition of Legg Mason by Citi Smith Barney, Smith oversaw the merger of the Legg Mason office with the Smith Barney office in Alexandria, Va. Later, he oversaw the Smith Barney/Legg Mason office and the Morgan Stanley office, following the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney union.
JPMorgan Asset Management tapped Varcity Kariuki as an executive director and client portfolio manager. Kariuki was global head of managed fixed income at JPMorgan Private Bank.
Litigation funding firm Burford Group LLC said corporate and commercial lawyer Melissa Sobel has joined the firm as corporate counsel, resident in New York. Sobel was most recently associate general counsel at Time Inc., where she worked for more than eight years. Previously, Sobel was a senior corporate attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York, working on U.S. and international mergers and acquisitions as well as securities offerings, financing transactions and restructurings, corporate spinoffs, private investments and other matters.
Mark Easton is rejoining O'Melveny & Myers LLP from Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., where he was deputy general counsel. He will work from Los Angeles as a partner in the mergers and acquisitions practice. He will also spend time in the Century City, Calif., office working with members of the entertainment, sports and media practice.
At Warner Bros., Easton was the principal transactions lawyer for the global legal department, working on acquisitions, investments, joint ventures, licensing agreements and financings in the television, video game and digital media sectors.
Rothstein Kass tapped Andrew Bentley as a principal and the leader of the tax practice in its soon-to-be-opened Boston office. He spent 7-1/2 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, where he specialized in the taxation of alternative investments. He also spent three years at Deloitte LLP covering tax.
Marc Luftglass joined Dechert LLP as counsel in the financial services group in the New York office. Luftglass was most recently with Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. He focuses on the formation of private equity funds, hedge funds, infrastructure funds, funds-of-funds, investor co-investment funds and co-investing employee funds.
Julia Zhu, formerly of Allan Law Group, joined Dykema Gossett PLLC as senior counsel in the corporate finance practice, based in Los Angeles and working with the China team. She practices international law, business law, equity finance, trade and international arbitration and litigation and works on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and strategic alliances, expansion strategies, cross-border transactions, private equity deals and entity structuring.
In Pittsburgh, PwC US appointed Sean Hoover as metals leader for its U.S. industrial products practice. Hoover takes over from Robert McCutcheon, who now leads the U.S. industrial products practice. Hoover spent two years at PwC's national office consulting on pension and other post-employment benefits, stock compensation and inventory accounting issues.
K&L Gates LLP and Australian national law firm Middletons are in talks about a possible combination. If approved, it would create a firm of more than 2,000 lawyers in 45 offices throughout Australia, North and South America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Discussions between the two firms have been under way for several months with formal proposals expected to be presented to both partnerships later in the year.
Revetas Capital Advisors LLP, a real estate investment adviser focused on restructuring opportunities in Central and Eastern Europe, opened an office in Vienna. The office will be led by Kiril Klaturov, who most recently worked in the banking finance and capital markets group of CEE law firm Schönherr Rechtsanwälte GmbH. He previously practiced at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP.
Also, chief financial officer Ian Jones was named a partner and advisory board member. Jones joined in February from Langham Hall UK LLP, where he was head of real estate.
Clippings from the next column:
-- Barclays plc hires I-Cheng Liu as head of investment banking for Taiwan.
-- Marathon Capital taps Goldman, Sachs & Co.'s Ani Rouskova as a director in San Francisco.
Notable:
-- Best Buy Co. names Hubert Joly as president and CEO after rejecting takeover bid from co-founder Richard Schulze.
Julia Zhu, formerly of Allan Law Group, joined Dykema Gossett PLLC as senior counsel in the corporate finance practice, based in Los Angeles and working with the China team.
