SocGen bucks broking slump with Evo hires
FRANCE’S number two bank Societe Generale has bucked the downward trend hitting many City brokers by snapping up an equities team from its rival Evolution Securities.
SocGen, which employs about 2,300 people in the UK, hired Evolution’s four-man former consumer research and sales team headed by Warren Ackerman, a food, home and personal care analyst.
The other hires are analysts Andrew Holland and Chas Manso de Zuniga, on beverage research and household and personal care respectively, and sales director Jamie Norman.
All four left Evolution in May as the brokerage shed about 30 of its 200 staff to cut costs in the face of falling revenues and rising fixed costs.
The four were originally hired by Evolution in 2009 when it took on about 60 staff from former German investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort.
The three analysts will report to SocGen’s head of equity research Matthew Jordan, also formerly of Dresdner Kleinwort. Norman will work under SocGen’s head of specialist sales Paul Jackson.