Top Goldman man quits to join Hayward
GOLDMAN Sachs’s head of UK investment banking is leaving to move on to an investment opportunity with former BP chief executive Tony Hayward, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Julian Metherell (pictured), who has been with Goldman since 1999, is an oil and gas specialist whose clients included BP, Centrica and Petrofac.
One senior banker called the move “a bit of a blow” for Goldman, adding that Metherell was a “key, central figure” for the firm’s oil and gas deals.
Another banker, however, said that his departure is “a disappointment, but manageable” for the bank, which recently hired Alastair Maxwell from Morgan Stanley as a managing director in oil and gas and Brett Olsher from Deutsche Bank as a managing director in mining.
During his time at Goldman, Metherell’s deals included Centrica’s £1.3bn takeover of Venture, Talisman Energy’s £1.2bn offer for Paladin Resources, the sale of BP Chemicals and the merger of Norsk Hydro’s oil and gas operations with Statoil.
He was promoted to partner at the firm in 2006 and worked for a spell in its New York headquarters. Before joining Goldman he had a career in the British army, after which he worked at investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort before its takeover by Commerzbank.
Goldman Sachs declined to comment.