Merrill Lynch has become the latest investment bank to exploit the changing French political landscape with the recruitment of a senior figure from the Ministry of Finance to boost its position in the mergers and acquisitions rankings.
The US bank has hired Luc Remont, deputy chief of staff to former Finance Minister Thierry Breton, as a managing director in its Paris investment banking business with a remit to cover its large French and European clients.
Yesterday, Breton joined independent investment bank Rothschild as a senior adviser.
The appointments follow a shake-up at the French finance ministry after the election of Nicolas Sarkoky as President early this year.
Merrill will be expecting Remont to boost its business. The bank has slipped to 15th in the French M&A rankings after finishing fourth last year according to Thomson Financial, an investment banking data provider.
Remont, 38, is an énarque – a graduate of France’s powerful École Nationale d’Administration, which grooms budding civil servants to take up influential positions in the French finance ministry.
A large number of énarques have joined investment banks after stints at the ministry, providing banks with lucrative M&A advisory mandates on France’s biggest deals.
Last December, Lazard swooped on the French government for a new partner, hiring Jean-Louis Girodolle, the French treasury deputy director in charge of transport.
Lazard has a record of taking government advisers to become top bankers. Mattieu Pigasse, vice-chairman of Lazard's European investment banking business was a former adviser to ex-prime minister Laurent Fabius.
Other recent hires by banks from government include Jacques Chirac's secretary general Augustin de Romanet de Beaune, who joined Crédit Agricole last year as director of the group’s finance and strategy department.
His hire followed that of Pierre Moraillon, former director of international relations in the French finance ministry, who joined Calyon, Agricole’s investment banking arm, as head of its global consumer group
Source: efinancialnews.com
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