VTB recruits for global expansion

Financial News

Jason Corcoran in Moscow
07 September 2009

VTB Capital, the Russian state-controlled investment bank, has hired a three-man mergers and acquisitions oil and gas team from Dresdner Kleinwort and two Morgan Stanley bankers in a worldwide recruitment drive.

The brokerage, which was launched in April last year, has lifted a hiring freeze that had led to a cut in personnel, costs and a halt on business expansion.

Yuri Soloviev, VTB Capital chief executive, said he had recruited an M&A energy advisory team from Dresdner in London, headed by Alex Metherell, along with Giles Coffey and Andrew Hollins. The bank has also hired a sales team from ING plus Morgan Stanley pair Alexei Mitrofanov, a financial institutions group banker, and Alexey Makhnyov, head of consumer and retail.

VTB Capital, which has recruited more than 500 personnel since launching last April, said it was also hiring financial controllers, traders, salespeople, commodities professionals, corporate finance professionals in M&A, and equity capital markets coverage bankers for roles in Moscow, London, Dubai and Singapore, where staffing had been cut to a third of previous levels.

Soloviev said the bank was likely to hire an initial team of a dozen bankers on Wall Street having ruled out buying a boutique investment bank stateside. VTB Capital has leveraged its parent’s balance sheet and government contacts to win business and has broken into the top three bookrunners for arranging eurobonds and rouble bonds in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.