By Davide Scigliuzzo
NEW YORK, Jan 5 (IFR) - Jefferies has hired two seniorleveraged finance bankers focused on the energy sector fromBarclays, two people familiar with the situation told IFR onThursday.
The pair, Paul Cugno and Robert Anderson, will start intheir new roles as managing directors on Monday.
They have worked together for 12 years, first at LehmanBrothers and then at Barclays after the British bank purchasedthe former's North American investment banking and capitalmarkets business in 2008.
At Barclays, Cugno most recently served as head of naturalresources, power and infrastructure debt capital markets, whileAnderson worked as a managing director in the high-yield andleveraged loan capital markets group.
Cugno joined Lehman's leveraged finance business in 2000after a three-year stint at Scotia Capital, while Andersonjoined the bank in 2004, according to their LinkedIn profiles.
Jefferies has made an aggressive push to bolster itsleveraged financing business in recent months, attempting tohire a number of senior investment bankers from Credit Suissebefore the Swiss bank managed to convince the majority of themto stay.
Barclays declined to comment. (Reporting by Davide Scigliuzzo; Editing by Natalie Harrison)