Banks Build Out Industry Coverage

Energy bankers seemed to be in demand to start the summer, as Stephens Inc., Greenhill & Co., and Evercore Partners all established Houston offices to bolster their energy coverage. Both Greenhill and Evercore poached ex-Merrill Lynch bankers, with Christopher Mize and Aaron Hoover going to Greenhill and Robert Pacha heading to Evercore. Stephens Inc., meanwhile, lured six pros from Energy Capital Solutions, including Ronald Montalbano, Keith Behrens and Bradley Nelson. There was also a bit of trading places between Wall Street and Washington, as former Congressman Christopher Shays joined the board of CIT Group, while James Millstein, the ex-Lazard restructuring star, headed South on 95, to assume his new role as the senior restructuring officer of the US Treasury. Also, Raymond James gained instant credibility in the mid-market M&A space through its acquisition of Lane Berry, the advisory firm formed by former DLJ bankers Frederick Lane and Robert Berry.

Barclays Capital-The global investment bank named Matthew Ponsonby and Mark Warham co-heads of mergers and acquisitions in Europe as part of an expansion of its investment banking and equities business globally.

Ponsonby was most recently global co-head of infrastructure investment banking at Citigroup, where he worked for 11 years. Warham comes from Morgan Stanley, where he was chairman of UK investment banking and formerly head of UK M&A. In 2006 and 2007, Warham was a director general for the Takeover Panel, an independent body that regulates mergers and takeovers in the UK.

Bryant Park Capital-The boutique investment bank has added a pair of senior bankers to its Philadelphia office, recruiting Dan Pickens and John Poeta.

Poeta arrives after having served as a managing director at Griffin Financial and PM Management. Prior to that, he also established his presence in the legal field, working as an attorney for Stevens & Lee and Mesirov Gelman.

Pickens worked as a senior vice president and managing director with Janney Montgomery Scott for 13 years and, previously, was a managing director with Wheat First Butcher Singer.

CIT Group - The mid-market financial services company added former Congressman Christopher Shays to its board.

Shays served as a Congressman in the US House of Representatives representing the 4th District of Connecticut from 1987 to 2009. Before that he was a member of the Connecticut state house of representatives from 1975 to 1987, and also served in the Peace Corps from 1968 to 1970. While in Congress he was a member of the Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance, and Government Sponsored Enterprises and the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity.

Joining Shays as a new member on the CIT board is Michael Carpenter, chairman and chief executive of Southgate Holdings, an alternative investment management company based in New York. Before that he served as chairman and chief executive of Citigroup Alternative Investments.

Deutsche Bank-The investment bank hired Michael Masterson, a former Merrill Lynch airline banker, as its co-head of Americas transportation and infrastructure.

At Merrill, Masterson was head of its airlines and aircraft leasing investment banking group for the Americas. He was at Merrill since 1997, where he was involved with M&A and capital-raising for airlines, railroads and trucking companies.

Masterson is the latest in a long line of former Merrill bankers who have found refuge at Deutsche. Recently, Deutsche announced it hired ex-Merrill pro Greg Starkins as head of US aerospace and defense banking.

Digital Ally-The surveillance company has expanded its corporate development team with the addition of Michael Caulfield.

Caulfield, over the last nine years, has worked with both Morgan Stanley and, more recently, with Banc of America Securities. Caulfield also spent more than a decade with General Electric Capital Corp.

Evercore Partners - The investment bank hired Robert Pacha as a senior managing director to establish its Houston office and lead its midstream energy practice.

At Bank of America Merrill, Pacha was in charge of the midstream energy and MLP practice. At Merrill Lynch, he advised on deals such as Targa Resources Inc.'s acquisition of Dynegy Midstream L.P. and Loews Corp.'s purchase of Dominion Resources' Permian Basin natural gas production assets.

Pacha left BofA Merrill in April and started at Evercore in the second week of June.

Harris Williams & Co. - The mid-market advisory firm named Geoffrey Frankel a managing director and head of the firm's restructuring advisory services business.

Before joining Harris Williams, Frankel led the restructuring advisory practice for National City Capital Markets in Cleveland, which was subsumed by Harris Williams' parent PNC Financial. Frankel also founded a boutique Midwestern investment banking and private equity firm focused on distressed investment and advisory opportunities. Earlier in his career he put in a stint at McDonald & Co., where he established and led the firm's restructuring advisory group.

Frankel began his career as a lawyer in the restructuring practice at Skadden Arps.

Greenhill & Co. - The rapidly expanding boutique bank retained Christopher Mize and Aaron Hoover as managing directors to launch a Houston branch specializing in energy.

At the combined Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Mize was co-head of the Americas energy and power practice. He had spent 22 years at Merrill Lynch, where he was co-head of the energy and power group prior to the firm's merger with BofA. Hoover worked with Mize in Merrill's energy group in Houston and became a managing director in 2005.

HSBC-The investment bank has appointed Oliver Duff as global head of leveraged and acquisition finance.

Duff, who joined the London-based bank in September 2006, will report to Spencer Lake, HSBC's global head of debt capital markets. Duff is currently global head of loan sales and syndication. Before joining HSBC, he worked for Morgan Stanley, where he ran the European loan syndicate, and for Goldman Sachs.

Duff is replacing Kevin Adeson, who will head a new global capital financing unit incorporating the bank's leveraged finance, capital markets, structured finance and project finance execution businesses. Adeson is also global co-head of principal investments.

Jones Day-The law firm has added four attorneys from Kirkland & Ellis to its global business restructuring and reorganization practice.

The group includes partners Bennett Spiegel and Richard Wynne and of counsel Erin Brady and Lori Sinanyan, who join Jones Day's Los Angeles office. Four associates-two in Los Angeles and two in New York-also left Kirkland for Jones Day.

Kirkland & Ellis-The law firm added David Fox and Daniel Wolf, who have left Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom.

Fox was the leader of Skadden's corporate group and a member of its governing body. He spent more than two decades with the firm. Wolf, meanwhile, was one of the youngest Skadden members to be named partner, at 30.

Lazard Middle Market- The mid-market specialist filled out its ranks. Alexander Chefetz, a consumer products banker, joined Lazard in New York after spending 10 years at Thomas Weisel Partners. At Thomas Weisel he was a managing director, co-head of the consumer investment banking group and a founding partner of the firm.

Douglas Brown, meanwhile, also joined Lazard as a managing director, covering the healthcare sector. Brown previously worked for Wachovia Securities' healthcare banking group for the last eight years.

MESA-The Los Angeles- and New York-based entertainment M&A boutique bank recruited Daniel Gossels to serve as a managing director. Gossels arrived from Montgomery & Co., where he was a principal overseeing the firm's media practice.

Gossels, at Montgomery, worked on the sales of Club Penguin, DailyCandy, UGO and IFilm. He also oversaw and completed the private placements for companies such as Realtime Worlds, WildTangent and Reactrix, among others.

Prior to joining Montgomery, he had served in an executive capacity for Hypnotic, where he was the president and COO. He also put in a stint at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities.

Alongside the Gossels hire, the firm also promoted Jonathan Levinson, Michael Josephs and Michael T.M. Jones to managing directors. Jones and Josephs joined the firm last year, from Bear Stearns and Credit Suisse, respectively, while Levinson came aboard in 2007 after serving in a marketing capacity for CSTV.

Miller Buckfire - The firm bolstered its M&A advisory business, hiring David A. Shiffman, a Goldman Sachs veteran of 11 years. Shiffman joined Miller Buckfire as a managing director.

Shiffman represents just the latest addition to Miller Buckfire's strategic advisory practice. He follows John Orem who joined the firm last year after more than 20 years at Morgan Stanley.

The advisory practice is co-headed by Lazard and General Electric veteran Michael Wildish, who joined in 2004, and Chanin & Co. vet Richard Morgner.

Perella Weinberg Partners-The boutique investment bank expanded its restructuring group with the additions of Richard Shinder and Agnes Tang.

Shinder joins from Goldman Sachs, while Tang most recently was part of Houlihan Lokey's financial restructuring group. Shinder and Tang join as managing director and director, respectively.

Perella also added Stefan Jentzsch as a partner and advisory board member.

Raymond James Financial-The investment bank subsumed mid-market banking and advisory firm Lane Berry. Frederick Lane and Robert Berry originally founded the boutique in 2002, coming out of Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette.

At Raymond James, Lane will become the vice chairman of investment banking, while Berry will serve as a managing director and co-head of the M&A practice. According to a statement, Berry will spearhead Raymond James' expanded focus on the middle market.

Among Lane Berry's 21 other employees who are being brought on by Raymond James, James Bunn was appointed as co-head of the combined firm's business services practice.

Sagent Advisors - The New York-based advisory firm has launched a new alternative capital markets unit. The new business will be led by Anthony Martino and Gregg Newman, former UBS pros.

Martino and Newman had each served as executive directors at UBS, leading transaction teams to complete private capital transactions.

Southlake Equity Group-The private equity firm hired David Spuria, the general counsel of TPG Capital.

Spuria joins the two co-founders as a partner and general counsel. Prior to TPG, Spuria had served as the in-house counsel at Capital Z Partners, and before that, he served as an M&A partner at Weil, Gotshal and Manges.

Stephens Inc.-The Little Rock, Arkansas-based investment bank launched an energy group based out of the firm's existing office in Dallas and a new office in Houston. The investment bank poached six pros from Energy Capital Solutions, LP.

Ronald S. Montalbano, Keith J. Behrens and Bradley D. Nelson, all managing directors, will lead the new team.

Transworld Capital Group - The China-focused financial adviser hired Marina Jiang to head the Beijing office's advisory group, and Barrington's Shawn Thompson.

Jiang joins the Arcadia, California-based advisory firm from Cerberus Capital Management, where she was director of business development and operations.

Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin-

The mid-market investment bank announced that Justin Abelow is back, resuming his previous role as a managing director within the firm's M&A advisory group.

Abelow had left Houlihan a little less than two years ago to join Deutsche Bank's Financial Sponsors group, where he focused specifically on middle-market private equity clients.

Abelow started his career as a lawyer with Davis Polk & Wardwell and put in stints with JPMorgan, First Boston and Barclays before first landing at Houlihan Lokey in 2002.

US Treasury-

The federal department will benefit from the addition of Jim Millstein, formerly a restructuring banker at Lazard, who has become the senior restructuring officer of the US Treasury. Millstein had previously served on President Obama's Economics and International Trade Team for the Department of the Treasury's transition team.

Before joining Lazard in 2000 as a managing director, Millstein practiced bankruptcy law at Cleary Gottlieb. Millstein is the son of Ira Millstein, a Weil, Gotshal & Manges senior partner.

Millstein joins fellow Lazard veterans Steve Rattner and Ron Bloom who have each also taken on roles in the administration.

Fennebresque & Co. -

The Charlotte, NC, boutique has brought on Wachovia Securities vet Stephen Saunders as a managing director. Saunders started with Bowles Hollowell Conner & Co. 11 years ago, and stayed with the team after it was subsumed by First Union Securities and then Wachovia.

Saunders primarily focuses on the aerospace, defense and government services sector, as well as the transportation and logistics space.

(c) 2009 Mergers & Acquisitions, The Dealmaker's Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.mergersunleashed.com http://www.sourcemedia.com/