A Deutsche-Solly asset swap

Mar 6, 2002

There were some musical chairs in Salomon and Deutsche''s equity departments this week.

Readers of this site will know that Ed Peter, Deutsche's equity supremo, is not faint-hearted when it comes to hiring. But this week was more balanced.

Having hired Gordon Crosby-Walsh, one of Salomon Smith Barney's top Hong Kong salespeople, he also lost Wahid Butt.

He had only hired Butt five weeks earlier, in a capacity that would see him run a large chunk of the firm's Korean research. Butt will now go to Solly to run its mid-cap product, and seems to have been partly motivated by a desire to work once again for Robin Newman, who used to run WI Carr.

Then again, Ed Peter also hired Elaine Yu, one of Goldman's Asian salespeople in New York this week, and is not about to stop as he seeks to fulfill his goal of building Asia's best brokerage operation.

He has lifted talent from many firms, and with bonuses all nearly paid (the latest will be CLSA in April) it looks likely there may be more hires to follow.