Jefferies names CLSA's Slone as Asia chairman in regional hiring spree

Reuters

Published Jul 14, 2019 11:17PM ET

Jefferies names CLSA's Slone as Asia chairman in regional hiring spree

(Reuters) - Jefferies Group LLC continued to capitalize on the internal woes of CLSA by adding the Asian brokerage's former long-time Chief Executive Jonathan Slone to a 50-plus regional hiring spree that has already included top-ranked analyst Christopher Wood.

Investment banking and broking firm Jefferies said on Sunday that it appointed Slone as chairman of Asia, a role that will focus on the financial firm's major relationships for investment banking and trading throughout the region.

Earlier this year, Slone, Wood, and a host of other CLSA bankers, including its Chairman Tang Zhenyi, left the brokerage, which was bought by Chinese brokerage CITIC Securities (SS:600030) in 2013 for $1.3 billion.

The resignations resulted from CITIC's efforts to revamp CLSA's daily operations and differences over strategy, people with direct knowledge of the matter had said earlier.

Prior to joining Jefferies, Slone spent over three decades at CLSA, where he was their longstanding chairman and CEO and oversaw CLSA's global operations of broking, investment banking, asset management, research and sales.

Other former CLSA employees who have joined Jefferies include Wood, a top-ranked equity strategist in Asia during the last two decades, as its global head of equity strategy, and Desh Peramunetilleke as head of microstrategy product.

Slone, Wood and Peramunetilleke will be based in Hong Kong, Jefferies said.

Jefferies has also hired well-known Australian banking analyst Brian Johnson from rival CLSA, adding to more than two dozen others who have been poached from the Asia-focused broker, Australian media reported last month.

Jefferies' stepped-up Asia expansion comes at a time when some investment banks are looking to reduce costs in the cut-throat competitive equities sales and trading, and research businesses in the region.

The firm has recently hired 54 professionals across sales, trading, research and investment banking in Australia, Japan and Hong Kong, it said in a statement.