Sept. 30: Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. appointed Liam McGee as chairman and chief executive. McGee was president of the consumer and small business bank for BofA.
Sept. 28: FBR Capital Markets Corp. hired managing director Larry Goldsmith for its real estate group in Arlington, Va. Goldsmith joined FBR following nearly 10 years at Banc of America Securities, where he was a managing director in its real estate and lodging investment banking group.
Sept. 22: Deutsche Bank AG appointed Nathan Davison as co-head of prime finance, Asia (ex-Japan). Davison was previously with Merrill Lynch in London, where he was a managing director, EMEA head of swaps, synthetics, hedge fund financing and corporate financing.
Stan Lai will join Moelis & Co. as a managing director in capital markets. At BofA Merrill, Lai was a managing director and head of private placements
Sept. 18: Aladdin Capital Holdings hired former Merrill Lynch banker Peter Graham as managing director of finance, based in Stamford, Conn.
Sept. 17: Citigroup Inc. hired Rodney Tsang from BofA Merrill as a managing director and co-head of China investment banking. Tsang was formerly head of China private sector coverage at Merrill.
Macquarie Capital Advisors hired former Merrill Lynch banker Peter Zillekens as a managing director in Frankfurt in the capital advisers group. Zillekens is a former Merrill Lynch & Co. banker.
Sept. 16: Macquarie Group Ltd. hired Kalpana Desai as deputy head of Asia for Macquarie Capital Advisors. Before this, Desai was Bank of America's head of Asia-Pacific mergers and acquisitions. Desai previously spent 11 years with Merrill Lynch.
Sept. 15: Macquarie Capital (USA) Inc. hired Peter Kind as a senior managing director in its U.S. advisory and capital markets business, focusing on the power, utilities and renewable energy sectors. From 2005, he was a managing director and head of power corporate and investment banking at BofA Securities.
Sept. 14: RBC Capital Markets said Nicolo Foschetti joined from Bank of America as a director in its structured interest rate sales group in London.
Sept. 11: Broadpoint Capital Inc. expanded its debt capital markets division with Quentin Murray, Michael Voelker and Ryan Goldman. Murray and Voelker join as managing directors and co-heads of the preferreds/hybrids group. Murray held that role at Bank of America and also spent 14 years at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Voelker was co-head of the investment grade credit division of BofA. Goldman joined as a managing director in the convertibles group.
Sept. 9: Thomas Weisel Partners Group Inc. tapped Matthew Allard as a managing director in investment banking, focused on financial sponsors. Also, Hank Lammens joined as a managing director in trading.
Allard was most recently with BofA Securities in New York, where he spent four years as a managing director covering financial sponsors. Prior to the BofA Merrill merger, Lammens spent seven years as an institutional trader with Merrill Lynch & Co.
Sept. 8: In London, Ashley Wilson joined Barclays Capital as a managing director and head of prime services, EMEA. He reports to Ajay Nagpal, head of prime services. At Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Wilson was a managing director and head of global market financing and services, EMEA.
Aug. 27: Patrick Jackman joined Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP in New York. Jackman was most recently a managing director and head of the international tax advisory group for Merrill, where he focused on increasing the tax efficiency of Merrill's cross-border operations.
John Hanson was hired as Australia head of mergers and acquisitions at Nomura Holdings Inc. He held a similar role at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Aug. 25: BofA's Warren de Wied, a former M&A lawyer who switched to investment banking in 2007, is leaving for law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC. De Wied will join as a partner based in New York. He had been a New York managing director at Bank of America since the Charlotte, N.C., lender bought Merrill Lynch.
Aug. 20: Jefferies & Co. hired Jon Pliner as a managing director and head of European credit sales and trading, based in London. Pliner is a 15-year veteran of Merrill Lynch, where he was a managing director with roles including head of flow credit trading and head of European emerging markets.
Aug. 18: RBC Capital Markets tapped Matthew Troy for its finance and trading team to oversee securities lending. Previously, Troy was director of global debt finance and securities lending at Merrill Lynch. Kristi DeBriyn, previously with Merrill, joined RBC's asset- and mortgage-backed securities sales and trading team. And Frank Bruzese joined the ABS/MBS sales and trading team from Banc of America Securities.
Aug. 14: Anna Faustini joined Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking as a managing director and head of foreign exchange corporate sales for the U.S. and Canada. At Bank of America, she was a managing director and head of the northeast corporate FX sales desk.
In Toronto, Eric Ohayon joined CIBC World Markets Inc. as a managing director, FX and commodity structuring. At BofA in London, he was head of FX structuring and co-head of GRCC structuring, EMEA.
Aug. 12: Michael Santini will join Deutsche Bank AG as a managing director and global head of diversified industrials and services from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Santini began his investment banking career in 1994 at Merrill in the industrials group, eventually becoming co-head of the industrials group in the Americas and a member of the Americas investment banking management committee.
Kevin Smith, formerly Merrill Lynch & Co.'s head of U.K. mergers and acquisitions, will join Standard Chartered plc in October. Based in London, he will be global head of oil and gas corporate advisory.
Aug. 11: Dimitri Psyllidis, former European co-head of Merrill Lynch's fixed-income, currencies and commodities trading unit, joined UBS to head foreign exchange and rates trading, globally.
Aug. 10: BNP Paribas SA hired Margaret Ren as chairwoman and CEO of corporate finance for Greater China. Ren left Bank of America Merrill Lynch in May. She joined Merrill in February 2007 and was chairwoman of China investment banking.
Aug. 7: JM Financial Services hired Sanjeev Bajaj, Shashwat Belapurkar and Dhiraj Dave from Bank of America Merrill Lynch in India for its fixed income and asset reconstruction business.
Bajaj was country treasurer at BofA and joins as a managing director in fixed income. Belapurkar was head of debt capital markets and arrived as a managing director, head of debt capital markets and sales and trading in fixed income.
Aug. 6: Daniel Sontag left Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He was as operational head of Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management. He is a 30-year veteran of Merrill and a former broker. Earlier, Sontag headed Merrill's wealth management and private banking businesses in the U.S., the Latin American business for retail investors, and Americas recruiting.
Aug. 5: Karl Behrens, formerly with Merrill, joined the secondaries team of Paul Capital.
Aug. 3: Adam Reynolds was appointed as an Asia co-head of Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking's flow fixed-income and currencies team. Reynolds was previously European head of global currencies flow sales with Merrill Lynch in London and Singapore.
July 29: UBS hired Keith Magnus to head investment banking in Singapore and Malaysia. Magnus joined from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he had the same job.
July 28: Former Merrill Lynch banker Naomi Koyama joined Barclays Capital in Tokyo as a director in FX sales responsible for real money clients in Japan.
July 27: Collins Stewart enlisted Brian Wright in New York as a managing director and healthcare research analyst. Wright was a vice president and senior managed care analyst at BofA Securities.
July 23: Leerink Swann LLC hired James Boylan, Bryan Giraudo, Tony Gibney and Mark Page from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Boylan became head of investment banking. The others are managing directors. Also, Eric Tansky, Brad Wolff and a team of mid- and junior-level bankers from BofA Merrill joined the firm in August.
Boylan spent 12 years at Merrill, both as an M&A specialist and a healthcare origination banker focusing on life sciences, medical device and healthcare services companies. Gibney, a 10-year Merrill veteran, led its East Coast biotechnology and branded pharmaceutical effort. Giraudo spent 12 years at Merrill Lynch, where he was responsible for West Coast mid and small cap biotechnology and medical technology relationships. Page was a third-year director in the healthcare investment banking group at Merrill in New York. He joined Merrill in 2001.
July 22: Jonathan Arnold joined Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. as a managing director and senior equity research analyst in company research in the global markets division.
Arnold comes in from BofA Merrill, where he was a managing director covering electric utilities in equity research. He joined Merrill in 1999.
July 21: Moelis & Co. said Caroline Silver will join the firm in October as a managing director in London covering the financial services industry. Silver was most recently with BofA Merrill as vice chairman of investment banking in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Barclays Wealth appointed Mitch Cox as a managing director and head of the global investment and product office. Cox was with Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management, where he most recently headed the global investment solutions group. He joined Merrill in 1997.
UBS Investment Bank said Heather Wolf joined U.S. equities research as a managing director and Erika Penala as a director. Wolf is head of a financials team covering large-cap banks, and Penala covers mid- and small-cap banks, reporting to Wolf.
Wolf and Penala were with Banc of America Securities Merrill Lynch Research.
July 20: Tribridge Investment Partners Ltd. hired John Liptak as portfolio manager for a special situations hedge fund it launched in August. Liptak was with Bank of America from 2001 to 2009 as head of the Asia special situations group.
Monroe Capital LLC launched Monroe Credit Advisors LLC, focusing on the middle market. Mark Gertzof, formerly a managing director with Merrill Lynch Capital, co-leads the new firm.
July 17: Oppenheimer & Co. tapped Michael Murphy and Tom Mulkeen as managing directors in the taxable fixed-income sales and trading department. They brought four colleagues: Scott Dorsey, Tom Keady, Clemente Cesare and Eric St. John. This group formerly operated Merrill Lynch's Long Island global institutional advisory division, which had middle-market institutional relationships with fixed-income investors. Murphy began working at Merrill in 1983, while Mulkeen arrived in 1984.
July 16: James Fenner is now head of capital markets for GE Capital Corp. in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Fenner was head of leveraged loan capital markets with Merrill Lynch, where he worked since 2005.
Bruce Elwell joined Evercore Wealth Management LLC's San Francisco office as a partner. Elwell was a managing director of Bank of America Private Wealth Management's U.S. Trust.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP said David Onorato, former deputy general counsel and director of litigation at Bank of America Corp., arrived as a partner in the firm's U.S. litigation practice group.
July 15: Thomas Weisel Partners Group Inc. brought in Joseph Carey and Les Franks for its i-banking team. Carey joined as a managing director and head of North America energy. He was head of the natural resources group at Banc of America Securities. Franks joined as a managing director focused on healthcare services. He spent eight years at BofA Securities.
RBC Capital Markets Corp. formed an aerospace and defense group and tapped managing director James Caldwell as its head, based in New York. Caldwell was global head of Banc of America Securities' aerospace, defense and transportation group. Previously, Caldwell spent more than nine years with Merrill.
July 14: Miller Buckfire & Co. LLC hired Michael Scott as a managing director to head a new U.S. government advisory practice.
As senior adviser to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox, Scott worked on the Troubled Asset Relief Program and the almost $6 trillion conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Scott joined the SEC in September 2008 from Banc of America Securities, where he was a managing director and head of the U.S. government entities investment banking practice that he established.
July 13: Sandler O'Neill + Partners LP hired Christopher Connors for its fixed-income group from Banc of America Securities, where he spent seven years running its asset-backed securities secondary desk in New York and London.
July 9: BTIG LLC enlisted John Walsh from BofA, where he was a managing director and senior high-yield trader for the healthcare, industrials, services and restaurant sectors.
Shearman & Sterling LLP said Jeffrey Quinn, formerly a managing director in the corporate finance group in investment banking at Merrill, joined the firm as of counsel.
July 8: RBC Capital Markets hired Minako Endo as director head of institutional fixed-income sales in Tokyo. Endo was with Merrill in Japan, where she was director of non-yen bond sales. And Chris Tam joined as a director in Hong Kong. Tam was most recently co-head, North Asia wholesale marketing at Merrill in Hong Kong.
July 7: Aladdin Capital Holdings LLC named Carlyle Peake chief operating officer of Aladdin Capital LLC and global head of syndicate for the firm. At Merrill, Peake was a managing director and head of emerging-markets syndicate.
June 30: Michel Morin, telecoms and media, who worked at Merrill since 1996, joined Barclays Capital's Latin America equity research team.
June 29: FBR Capital Markets Corp. hired Joseph Giacobbe for its diversified industrials group in Arlington, Va. He was a managing director at BofA Securities' aerospace, defense and transportation group. He began his investment banking career with Merrill.
June 26: Stifel, Nicolaus & Co. named Victor Nesi as director of investment banking and co-director of capital markets. Nesi, with Merrill since 1996, headed the global private equity practice for the telecommunications and media industry.
MidOcean Partners LLP hired managing director Scott O'Callaghan, who was global head of leveraged sales at Bank of America.
June 25: Credit Suisse Group appointed Simon Yuan as a managing director and co-head of the financial institutions greater China coverage team in its i-banking department. Yuan was previously with Merrill in Hong Kong, where he worked since 2004. During that time, he was head of China FIG.
BTIG LLC added managing director David Schneider for a U.S.-based Japan team. Schneider was with Merrill in Japan, where he was in charge of the entire execution services platform.
Loeb & Loeb LLP said Frank Marinaro joined as a partner in the corporate department -- initially be resident in New York and relocating to the Beijing office when it opens this year to serve as the chief representative in China. At Merrill, Marinaro was first vice president and co-head of the strategic mergers and acquisitions and global private equity counsel group.
June 24: Cowen Group Inc. hired James Lilly as a managing director in the investment banking group to lead the healthcare services practice. Lilly was an MD in the global healthcare group at Merrill.
American International Group Inc. named Alain Karaoglan senior vice president, divestiture. Previously, Karaoglan was a managing director in equity research at Banc of America Securities LLC, leading the financial services equity research team that covered insurance, banks, investment banks, asset managers, consumer finance, exchanges and REITs.
June 22: Cantor Fitzgerald LP hired David Stith for its investment banking group as a managing director, head of leveraged finance and financial sponsor coverage. At Merrill Lynch, Stith was a managing director in the leveraged finance group. Deals he worked on there included Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.'s $25.9 billion acquisition of Phelps Dodge Corp. and Hertz Corp.'s $15.5 billion leveraged buyout by a consortium of private equity firms.
Kevin Scheetz joined Moelis & Co. as a managing director in technology, focusing on hardware, semiconductors and components clients. Scheetz was most recently head of the semiconductors and electronics investment banking franchise at Merrill
June 19: In September, William Rifkin will join J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. as vice chairman of mergers and acquisitions, based in New York and reporting to global head of M&A, Jimmy Elliott. Rifkin was chairman of global M&A at Merrill Lynch and chairman of its fairness opinion committee.
Some deal's Rifkin worked on include Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.'s $25.9 billion acquisition of Phelps Dodge Corp., Gold Kist Inc.'s $1.1 billion sale to Pilgrim's Pride Corp., Adidas-Salomon AG's $3.8 billion acquisition of Reebok International Ltd. and Cinergy Corp.'s $9 billion merger with Duke Energy Corp.
June 15: Telecom rainmaker George H. "Woody" Young III, who left BofA-Merrill in April,
will join Lazard as head of global telecommunications and a vice chairman, U.S. investment banking. He will work from New York.
Rothschild says it recently hired Geoff Blythe from Merrill to cover the industrials sector and BofA's Steven Lipman to cover financial sponsors.
And Chris Wofford joined Macquarie Capital as a managing director and head of the transportation and logistics effort in New York. At BofA, Wofford was global sector head of transportation and logistics in the investment banking division. Prior to that, he was a senior managing director and one of three partners overseeing Bear, Stearns & Co.'s transportation and logistics practice.
June 12: CIBC World Markets Inc. has another addition to its distribution team: Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Takis Spiropoulos. He joins as a managing director and head of the electronic solutions group. At BofA-Merrill, Spiropoulos was in charge of all aspects of the FX e-commerce business, including pricing, risk management and distribution.
June 11: Signal Hill Capital Group LLC tapped Justin Balciunas as a director. Balciunas was a director at Merrill Lynch & Co. in the real estate investment banking group in New York. Prior to Merrill, he was a vice president at Bear, Stearns & Co. in the real estate, gaming and lodging investment banking group. He was previously one of the initial founding partners at Signal Hill, a specialty investment banking, research and institutional brokerage firm.
June 10: Oppenheimer & Co. hired Daniel Ponder as a managing director of high yield sales. Ponder arrives after 14 years at Bank of America Securities LLC, where he was a managing director and a senior member of its high yield sales team.
June 9: Barclays Capital hired Jim Chapman as head of power and utilities investment banking, Asia (ex-Japan). Chapman was head of power banking for that region at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Five other bankers will join with him. Before BofA-Merrill, all had been with Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
June 8: UBS Investment Bank hired gaming veteran William Newby as a managing director and head of Americas gaming and leisure coverage in the real estate investment banking group. Newby joins from Bank of America Corp., where he was senior client manager for Banc of America Securities LLC's gaming and leisure group.
Bryan Cave LLP enlisted Douglas Thompson as a partner in Santa Monica, Calif. He will practice with the commercial litigation, class and derivative actions and financial institutions client service groups. As managing director and general counsel of litigation at Countrywide Financial Corp., Thompson headed the litigation department and managed its nationwide portfolio of litigation matters. After Bank of America Corp.'s acquisition of Countrywide, Thompson managed its legacy Countrywide consumer finance class action and securities class action litigation matters. Also, he led the integration of Countrywide;s litigation department into BofA.
Private equity firm Advent International hired Bob Wigley as an operating partner to advise on opportunities in financial services in Europe. Wigley was with Merrill Lynch & Co. for 10 years until January, most recently as chairman of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Evercore Wealth Management opened an office in San Francisco and hired four partners and a senior adviser. Partners include William Vaughn and Judith Moses, who are equity portfolio managers. Charles Swindells joins as a senior adviser. Two more partners will join in July. Swindells was previously Western region vice chairman, U.S. Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Management, where the rest of the team is from.
Barclays Capital hired Ricardo Lanfranchi as head of equities sales for Brazil, based in Sao Paulo. He reports to New York-based Bill Rutledge, head of equities distribution for Latin America. Lanfranchi spent 12 years at Merrill Lynch & Co. in Brazil, most recently as president of Merrill Lynch CTVM, the firm's broker-dealer in Brazil.
June 4: Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP said Jon Eisenberg will join the firm as of counsel in its New York and Washington offices in September, focusing on litigation and regulatory matters. Eisenberg is the former head of Merrill Lynch & Co.'s global markets and investment banking litigation and co-head of Merrill's global litigation, regulatory and employment law group.
Meanwhile, Janney Montgomery Scott LLC said Michael Solomon joined the firm as a managing director to open its New York public finance office later this year. He joins Janney after six years with Merrill Lynch & Co., where he led its investment banking efforts in Michigan, Massachusetts and parts of New York.
June 3: Greenhill & Co. brought in Christopher Mize and Aaron Hoover as managing directors to establish a Houston office focused on energy companies. Mize was co-head of Bank of America Merrill Lynch's energy and power practice for the Americas and, prior to that, was co-head of Merrill's energy and power practice.
June 2: Michael Caulfield
joined Digital Ally Inc.'s management team as vice president of strategic development. Caulfield was a managing director at Banc of America Securities LLC, responsible for relationships with large industrial companies. He was also in charge of BAS' global i-banking activities involving the safety, security, engineering and construction industries.
June 1: Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP tapped Joanna Hendon as a partner in its litigation practice, resident in New York. She was previously a first vice president in the general counsel's office at Merrill Lynch & Co. Hendon oversaw all of the investment bank's criminal inquiries worldwide as well as civil enforcement matters, including those involving CDOs, auction rate securities and subprime mortgage-backed securities.
Elsewhere, Societe Generale SA brought in Evgeny Solovyov as a senior analyst covering the oil and gas sector. Solovyov previously worked at Merrill Lynch & Co. and will be responsible for coverage in Europe, Russia and other countries.
May 29: Investment banking boutique Evercore Partners Inc. added Robert Pacha to its advisory practice as a senior managing director to lead the firm's midstream energy practice. Pacha will also establish Evercore's Houston office. Pacha was most recently a managing director at BofA Merrill, where he led the firm's midstream energy and MLP practice.
Elsewhere, Susan Rimmer is joining CIBC Capital Markets Inc. as a managing director responsible for the corporates and financial institutions segments of debt capital markets. Rimmer was head of DCM origination at BofA Merrill.
May 27: Jefferies & Co. grew its high yield, leveraged loans, distressed and special situations sales, trading and research groups. In high yield and distressed debt sales Scott Haberman and Richard Reubenstone joined from Merrill Lynch & Co. Two senior publishing analysts recently joined in leveraged finance: Eric Toubin joined from Bank of America Corp., where he covered technology; and John Maxwell joined from Merrill Lynch to cover the gaming space.
May 22: Sterne, Agee & Leach Inc. said Michael Perry joined its financial institutions investment banking group. Perry arrives from Merrill Lynch & Co., where he spent four years as a director in the depository institutions group to originate new advisory and capital raising assignments. Prior to Merrill, Perry spent four years at Bear, Stearns & Co.
May 20: Steve Sakwa joined New York-based ISI Group Inc. Sakwa was an analyst of U.S. real estate investment trusts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
May 19: Jim Ratigan will join Deutsche Bank AG as a managing director in the mergers and acquisitions group in the Americas, focused on the industrials sector. Ratigan joins from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he spent 18 years.
Elsewhere, Miller Tabak Roberts Securities LLC launched a mortgage- and asset-backed securities department with eight structured product veterans. The group is led by managing director Sachin Jhangiani. He most recently led the West Coast-based structured products sales team at Banc of America Securities LLC and, prior to that, was BofA's head of origination and servicing sales in New York. Joining as senior vice presidents are several traders, including Sean Grettum Matthew Kulekofsky and Mohammed Noorali who worked at BofA.
May 18: Barclays Capital hired Timothy Last as a managing director, head of equity derivatives flow sales, non-Japan Asia. Last was with Merrill Lynch & Co. in Hong Kong, where he was head of equity derivatives sales in Asia Pacific.
Elsewhere, Scott-Macon Ltd. hired Robert Snape as a managing director and group head for consumer and retail. Previously, Snape was a managing director in the global mergers and acquisitions group at Banc of America Securities LLC.
May 15: Evercore Partners Inc. said Mark Friedman joined the firm's advisory business as a senior managing director in New York to co-lead its transportation practice. Previously, he was head of U.S. transportation and infrastructure at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and was global head of its shipping investment banking business.
Meanwhile, FBR Capital Markets Corp. expanded its institutional brokerage business, launching a credit sales and trading platform. Six people joined the group to debut the firm's corporate bond and bank loan trading capability focusing on crossover, high-yield and distressed debt instruments. One was Jay Coyle, senior vice president, credit sales in New York. Coyle was a vice president on the distressed credit sales team at Banc of America Securities LLC.
May 14: Sandra Dunleavy, a former Bank of America Corp. executive, joined Alvarez & Marsal as a managing director in the financial industry advisory services group, based in Washington.
Kalpana Desai, Bank of America Corp.'s head of Asia-Pacific mergers and acquisitions, will leave the bank. She had spent 11 years with Merrill Lynch & Co.
Numerous reports have said Merrill's China investment banking chairman, Margaret Ren, left the bank. Ren is also daughter-in-law of former Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang.
Meanwhile, Bank of America Merrill Lynch's head of airlines and aircraft leasing investment banking for the Americas left for Deutsche Bank AG. Michael Masterson will join Deutsche as a managing director and co-head of Americas transportation and infrastructure alongside Craig Fuehrer.
BofA food bankers jump to BMO Capital: BMO Capital Markets has hired
three senior investment bankers
from Banc of America Securities LLC to join its food and consumer
group. BMO Capital is the U.S. investment arm of the Bank of Montreal.
One of the new employees is Greg Pearlman, who spoke to us recently
from BMO's annual agricultural, protein and fertilizer conference
happening in New York. --
Suzanne StevensMay 12: UBS Investment Bank made three hires from Banc of America Securities LLC to cover Internet, interactive entertainment and related technology companies. Brian Pitz joins as an executive director and team leader, Brian Fitzgerald as a director, and Kaizad Gotla as an associate analyst.
Meanwhile, RBC Capital Markets Corp.
appointed Deborah Freer as a managing director and chief operating officer for its U.S. operations. Previously, Freer spent 20 years with Merrill Lynch & Co.
Bombay Stock Exchange appointed Madhu Kannan as a managing director and
CEO. Kannan was a managing director with Bank of America Merrill Lynch
in New York.
Elsewhere, Wells Fargo & Co. hired Peter Hill as head of public finance investment banking. Hill was a managing director and head of public finance investment banking at Banc of America Securities LLC. He also spent 14 years at J.P. Morgan Securities Inc.
Separately, Wells Fargo expanded its equity research and equities sales and trading divisions with eight hires. Among them are Matthew Brown and Chris Mueller in equities sales and trading. Brown joins as a managing director and head of cash trading and Wachovia automated trading solutions. He was Bank of America Corp.'s head of cash and program trading. Mueller joins as managing director, senior coverage trader. He was head of New York coverage trading at BofA. Brian Kucich, Brendan Toulouse and Lisa Puelo also join from BofA. Kucich and Toulouse join as managing directors, senior institutional sales. Puelo joins as a director, senior institutional sales.
Meanwhile, Barclays Capital hired Gabriel Barbará as head of equities for Mexico. Previously, Barbará spent 14 years at Merrill Lynch México, most recently as a director in equities sales trading.
May 7: Expanding its Americas industrials team, Deutsche Bank AG
hired Greg Starkins as a managing director and head of aerospace and defense in the U.S. He held the same role with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Meanwhile, insurance holding company W. R. Berkley Corp. enlisted Richard Baio as vice president and treasurer. Baio was most recently a director in Merrill Lynch & Co.'s financial institutions investment banking group, where he specialized in insurance company advisory, financing, and mergers and acquisitions.
Elsewhere, Jefferies International Ltd.
took on managing director Domenico Nardelli and senior vice president David Pye for its fixed income group in London. Nardelli joins from Banc of America Securities LLC, where he was a managing director in the global rates currencies and commodities group and head of the Euro medium term notes desk. Pye covers rates sales and was most recently a vice president at Nomura International plc.
May 4: Deutsche Bank AG
hired Paul Wetzel from Bank of America Corp. Merrill Lynch to be head of financial institutions mergers and acquisitions in the Americas. At Merrill, Wetzel has been head of global strategy and business development, head of FIG Asia and head of global FIG M&A.
Meanwhile, Citadel Securities established an investment banking group with three hires. Todd Kaplan, who joined in March, becomes head of the unit, reporting to Rohit D'Souza, CEO of Citadel Securities. Brian Maier joins as head of industry groups and Carl Mayer joins as head of leveraged finance. Both report to Kaplan.
Kaplan was with Merrill Lynch & Co. since 1986, having been head of global leveraged finance, capital markets and financing, global principal investments and corporate finance. Maier is a 25-year investment banking veteran of Merrill Lynch and Goldman, Sachs & Co. Most recently, he was group head of consumer industries and equity private placements at Merrill. Mayer was head of leveraged finance capital markets and a member of the origination capital committee at Merrill. Before that, he was a managing director in high yield capital markets at Deutsche Bank AG.
April 28: Piper Jaffray & Co. expanded its public finance banking and municipal trading group with three hires in New York. John Coan joined as a managing director to focus on large issuer business on the East Coast and cover the transportation sector. He was with Bank of America Corp.
Elsewhere, Noble, an independent investment bank focused on small and mid-cap companies,
hired Peter Tracey and John Millar as co-heads of corporate broking and equity capital markets in London. Tracey spent the past eight years at Merrill Lynch & Co. Millar worked at Merrill Lynch International, where he was a managing director of corporate finance.
April 24: Kirk Donaldson and Todd Gutkin, veterans of Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch,
joined Morgan Stanley in New York.
April 23: Moelis & Co.
said Mark Aedy will join the firm in June as head of Europe, Middle East and Africa investment banking, based in London. He will also join the management committee. Aedy was most recently head of EMEA corporate and investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Meanwhile, Exchange Place Partners LLC hired partners Jean Allen and Laura McPhail from Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch, where they created an internal executive search capability.
Elsewhere, Broadpoint Capital Inc. said Roger Daly, John Fernandez were among new managing directors in its rates group. Daly was a trader on the U.S. Treasury trading desks of Bank of America Corp., BNP Paribas SA and Paine Webber. Fernandez worked for Merrill Lynch & Co. as a director in interest rate product sales. Prior to Merrill, he spent a decade at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., most recently as a vice President in the interest rate product sales group.
April 21: Nomura Holdings Inc.
expanded
its European oil and gas equity research team, hiring Alastair Syme and
James Talbot from Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch.
April 20: Pali Capital Inc.
made four hires
in Boston. Among them was Chris Pillsbury. Pillsbury joins Pali from
Bank of America Corp., where he was a principal and head of sales
trading in Boston.
April 17: SMH Capital Markets
hired Douglas Becker as managing
director, senior oil services and equipment analyst. Becker joined from
Banc of America Securities LLC, where he spent more than 10 years
covering sectors including exploration and production companies and
integrated oils.
Meanwhile, institutional fixed income broker-dealer Knight Libertas LLC
hired John
Price as a managing director, head of U.S. dollar bank capital
securities, base in Greenwich, Conn. Previously, Price was a managing
director and head of single name credit trading for high yield and high
grade bonds at Merrill Lynch & Co. Before his eight years at
Merrill, he was a senior vice president in institutional corporate and
preferred trading at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., where he spent 10
years. Price also worked at Morgan Stanley.
April 15: A
trio of healthcare dealmakers
headed to boutique investment bank Centerview Partners LLC, including
Alan Hartman, Richard Girling and Mark Robinson. The firm is also
opening offices in London and San Francisco.
(It's worth noting that boutique i-banks don't have any government-sponsored spending caps.)
On the same day we reported those moves, our April 16 Movers & shakers column also featured:
- BofA-Merrill's EMEA head of mining and metals, Khaled Fathallah, who joined Deutsche Bank AG; and
- longtime Merrill banker Takeshi Hasebe, who joined Credit Suisse Group as head of ECM in Japan.
Since our
April 3 post which included reports saying renowned rainmaker George H. "Woody" Young III was leaving, these movers joined the exodus:
- America's Growth Capital hired Hubert Chang as a managing director covering semiconductors; cleantech;
- Shearman & Sterling LLP grabbed D. Kevin Dolan as of counsel, working from Washington and New York; and
- Deutsche Bank took Wayne Yang as head of key clients group, Southeast Asia.
Between April 3 and March 12, we tracked these people:
- SMH Capital Markets brought in Sylvia Barnes as a managing
director and group head of its energy investment banking practice,
based in Houston. Barnes was a managing director at Merrill's energy
investing banking practice;
- Moelis & Co. hired
Stan Holtz as a managing director in Chicago to lead its telecom sector
coverage. At BofA, Holtz was head of U.S. telecom investment banking;
- Carmel Partners Inc. tapped
Quinn Barton as a managing partner in charge of both performing and
distressed debt acquisition. He head its new office in New York. Barton
spent nearly five years at BofA, where he was a managing director and
head of CMBS trading;
- Chief investment strategist Richard Bernstein and chief North America economist David Rosenberg are leaving
Banc of America Securities-Merrill Lynch Research. Twenty-year Merrill
veteran Bernstein will leave on April 15 to pursue other opportunities,
while nine-year ML veteran Rosenberg will leave on May 11. BofA is
searching for replacements. Returning to Toronto, Rosenberg is joining
wealth management firm Gluskin Sheff + Associates Inc. as chief
economist and strategist;
- BofA's head of equity sales for the Americas, Brennan Warble, said he's retiring;
- Nomura Holdings Inc. hired
Andrea Pellegrini as co-chairman for Italy and head of investment
banking. At BofA-Merrill, he was he was chairman of the public sector
group for Europe, the Middle East and Africa and head of investment
banking for Italy;
- Thomas Davidson said he's leaving for
Credit Suisse Group. In June, Davidson will co-head the healthcare
group in the Americas alongside Stuart Smith;
- BMO Capital
Markets brought in Christopher Donohoe as a managing director in its
financial institutions group. Donohoe had been a senior investment
banker with BofA;
- Credit Suisse also hired
Jonathan Grundy to head its energy business in Europe, the Middle East
and Africa. He will join the London office in July. Grundy was global
head of energy and power investment banking at BofA-Merrill;
- Cowen
Group Inc. hired Grant Miller for its capital markets group as a
managing director. He was an ECM managing director at BofA Securities;
and
- Mary Joan Hoene, an investment management and securities lawyer, joined
Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP in New York as counsel in its
corporate practice. As independent fund chief compliance officer at
BofA, she was responsible for establishing a compliance program for
four fund families aggregating more than $200 billion in assets,
following the bank's merger with FleetBoston Financial Corp.
Before our April 3
post, we put together a heftier list on
March 12 going back to January, when the merger was completed:
- KBW Inc. expanded
its mortgage-backed securities trading team with senior agency
pass-through trader Greg Hargraves, who spent nearly 20 years in the
mortgage business at Merrill;
- Oppenheimer & Co. hired Brian Belski as a managing director and chief investment strategist. Belski was chief U.S. sector strategist at Merrill;
- Evercore Partners Inc. recruited
George Ackert as a senior managing director to establish and lead a
transportation and infrastructure practice. He's also developing a
sports advisory business for Evercore.
At BofA-Merrill Ackert was global head of transportation and
infrastructure;
- CIBC World Markets Inc. tapped
Eric Price as a managing director and head of the New York financial
solutions group. Price was head of U.S. institutional FX sales at
Merrill;
- Amherst Securities Group LP brought in Andrew Beal for agency CMO trading. Beal worked at Merrill for 12 years, where he traded collateralized mortgage obligations;
- Qatalyst Group enlisted
Jean Tardy-Joubert as a partner and head of European investment banking
and opened the firm's London office. Tardy-Joubert was head of European
technology i-banking at Merrill;
- Not a poaching, but obviously significant, Merrill's former CEO and president John Thain was replaced by BofA general counsel Brian Moynihan in late January;
- Robert Chiu joined
Nomura Holdings Inc. as head of TMT investment banking. Previously, he
was regional head of TMT i-banking, Asia-Pacific, and chairman of
Taiwan i-banking for Merrill;
- Longtime Merrill Lynch bankers Daniel Markaity and Christopher Bury have joined Jefferies & Co. as managing directors and co-heads of the fixed-income rates business;
- Vicky Binns, head of equities research at Merrill's Australia operations, went to BHP Billiton Ltd.'s Singapore office. She will lead the mining giant's global team of commodity analysts;
- Another
noted move that wasn't a poach: Gregory Fleming (who brokered the
BofA-Merrill deal on Merrill's behalf), former president and chief
operating officer of Merrill, was appointed
as a senior research scholar and distinguished visiting fellow of the
Center for the Study of Corporate Law, both at Yale Law School;
- At the time Fleming left, Merrill's Singapore-based chief Asia strategist, Mark Matthews, reportedly left the firm;
- Thomas Weisel Partners Group Inc. took on
Steven Satov as a managing director in institutional sales. He was a
director of institutional equity sales at Merrill Lynch Canada;
- Greg Margolies joined
Ares Management LLC as a senior partner and head of its capital markets
group. At Merrill, he was head of global leveraged finance and capital
commitments and a member of the executive committee of the i-banking
group.
To start things off, just a few days after BofA
completed its hasty (that's not in retrospect, the deal was kind of
slapped together) acquisition of Merrill Lynch to grab its "thundering
herd" of brokers, Robert McCann, who was vice chairman and president of
the prized global wealth management division at Merrill,
headed for the door. UBS is said to be close to hiring McCann as head of its wealth management business in the Americas.
Comments
do you know for a fact that the ML investment banking and trading business was profitable including cost of capital over the last business cycle? I suspect that it was not.
It is also clear that bad bets by the investment bankers and traders forced ML the arms of BOA.
The thundering herd is an asset worth preserving - but the ML i-bankers and traders are not. BOA is better off if the bankers and traders leave and are not replaced.