MARKETS SPECTATOR: Citigroup, Investec snare talent
Aidan Allen, a former UBS senior managing director who was co-head of the firm’s financial sponsors and industrial investment banking team in Australia, has joined Citigroup.
Allen will be Citi’s head of general industries and financial sponsors investment banking team for Australia and New Zealand based in Sydney, according to an email obtained by Markets Spectator. He will take over a number of the business responsibilities of Tony Osmond, Citi’s head of corporate and investment banking in Australia and NZ.
“Aidan will be a senior member of our institutional banking leadership team and help us drive our origination effort harder across equities, fixed income and the corporate and investment bank,” says Osmond in an email.
In addition to Allen, Citigroup has hired Josephine Majewski from Barclay’s to be chief operating officer for corporate and investment banking in Australia. Majewski starts at Citi today. Allen starts work at the firm in November. Investment banks often enforce a six-month vacation period for bankers if they decide to leave their firms, to prevent rivals from immediately winning business.
Citi is advising Archer Daniels Midland on its $3.4 billion takeover of GrainCorp. Osmond claims the firm has “a very strong pipeline” of deals.
In other hiring news, Investec, the South African investment bank whose Australian chairman is David Gonski, says Rhys Gwyn has begun work at the firm as head of Australian financial markets.
Gwyn is a former Goldman Sachs managing director who worked at the Wall Street firm for two decades. His last job was head of Goldman Sachs Australia’s fixed income, currencies and commodities business.
Citigroup and Investec’s hires were earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal.