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By Pamela Barbaglia
LONDON, Nov 29 (Reuters) - U.S. investment bank Jefferies
has bolstered its coverage of Southern Europe with two
senior hires from Deutsche Bank to focus on clients
in Spain and Portugal, a source familiar with the matter told
Reuters.
The Wall Street bank has snapped up Deutsche Bank's
M&A head in Iberia, Andres Gutierrez, as its new
investment banking boss for the region while Santiago Garcia
Linares, a vice president at Deutsche Bank, will join as a
director at the bank's Madrid office, the source said, speaking
on condition of anonymity.
Gutierrez and Garcia Linares will join Jefferies in
mid-December and will focus on advising infrastructure clients
among others, the source said.
Deutsche Bank declined to comment while Jefferies was not
immediately available for comment.
Jefferies, which has a dozen investment bankers operating
out of Madrid, has been on a hiring spree this year, poaching a
number of senior dealmakers from Credit Suisse,
JPMorgan and Barclays among others in a bid to
take advantage of record-breaking levels of M&A deals.
Gutierrez, a 14-year veteran of Deutsche Bank, will report
to Armando Rubio-Alvarez, a former Credit Suisse banker who
joined the bank earlier this year as country head for Spain and
Portugal while also taking the helm of the bank's financial
institutions (FIG) franchise across Europe, the Middle East and
Africa.
Since the summer, Jefferies has doubled headcount at its FIG
franchise to more than 70 bankers globally and poached Andres
Espinos -- who will start in January as a senior vice president
in Madrid -- from Banco Sabadell.
(Editing by Bernadette Baum)