After poaching several senior officials from CLSA over the past two years to strengthen its institutional equities and research team, US investment bank Jefferies is now looking to scale up its equity capital markets (ECM) deals practice in India and South Asia, sources in the know told Moneycontrol.
The move follows a blitzkrieg of fund-raising by India Inc in 2021 with firms raising more than 1 lakh crores via the IPO route, an all-time record for a calendar year.
“Jefferies believes that now that the institutional equities vertical has developed, it’s an opportune time to invest in the ECM business as both are complementary product suites,” according to one of the persons cited above.
A second person told Moneycontrol that Jibi Jacob, Managing Director and Head, Capital Markets (Investment Banking) at Edelweiss Financial Services has resigned and may be headed to Jefferies.
“Jibi Jacob is likely to take up the role of MD and Head (Capital Markets), Jefferies for India & South East Asia. If he comes on board, he will report to Probir R,” the second person added.
Currently, Singapore based Probir R is the head of Investment Banking and Capital Markets, Jefferies for India & South-East Asia.
A third person confirmed Jacob’s exit and the likely move to Jefferies. The US firm recently acted on the IPOs of PolicyBazaar’s parent and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed Star Health Insurance. To be sure, other than IPOs, an investment bank’s ECM business includes advising on QIPs, rights issues and block trades.
All the three persons above spoke to Moneycontrol on the condition of anonymity.
Email queries sent to Edelweiss and Jefferies remained unanswered at the time of going to press, despite multiple reminders. Jibi Jacob was unavailable for comment.
Christopher Wood, Ashish Agarwal and Mahesh Nandurkar are amongst the senior executives of CLSA looking at equity strategy and research who had moved on earlier to join Jefferies.
According to his Linkedin profile, Jacob, a chartered accountant has spent 14 years at Edelweiss Financial Services and had earlier worked as an associate at PwC.
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