Merrill broking star Fraser set to step down
SIMON Fraser, one of the broking stars at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, is retiring from the City at the end of the year.
The bank has not yet made an official announcement but Fraser’s clients, which include Man, Meggitt and Capital Shopping Centres, have all been informed.
The strong broking business at the firm will be headed by Mark Astaire, the former Hoare Govett broker who is currently co-head of the team. BAML is second biggest broker in the league tables, with 30 FTSE 100 clients, just three behind JP Morgan Cazenove.
Fraser is already a director at Glyndebourne. He owns an estate in Sussex, where he hopes to devote time to farming.
He is still under the age of 50 and has been at Merrill Lynch for 16 years, eight of those as co-head of corporate broking.
Corporate broking is often a relatively low fee business but it is hugely important to investment banks because it often leads to transactional work.
BAML has made a number of key senior hires in its UK team, hiring Ed Peel from Nomura as a new managing director in corporate broking, as well as three senior managing directors.