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Deutsche Bank Point Man for Hedge Funds, Barry Bausano, to Leave

Deutsche Bank Point Man for Hedge Funds, Barry Bausano, to Leave

(Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Bank AG’s Barry Bausano, a longtime senior executive overseeing its relations with hedge fund clients, is leaving as the firm shakes up its U.S. operations.

Bausano, 54, has helped lead efforts to retain big trading clients in recent years, after some grew concerned about the bank’s strength as a counterparty. He will step down as chairman of its business with hedge funds and as chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank Securities, the company’s U.S. broker-dealer, according to a memo sent to staff on Tuesday.

“We owe Barry a great deal of gratitude for his contributions to the bank over the years, including building a leading global prime finance platform, forging strong relationships with hedge fund founders, principals, and CIOs,” Zia Huque, who oversees markets operations at the bank, wrote in a memo to staff. He will “transition” out of the roles this month, Huque said.

Bausano’s career has straddled both sides of the industry, starting with stints at major hedge funds before he went to work in the banking operations catering to them. After graduating from Harvard University in the mid-1980s, he handled investments at Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management, Steinhardt Partners and Moore Capital Management. He then started his own firm, Red Wolf Capital Management. He joined Deutsche Bank in 2002.

About eight years later, he was promoted to oversee the equities division in the Americas when former executive Robert Karofsky stepped down. A year later, the firm surpassed Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to take the top spot in an annual Bloomberg ranking of investment banks -- both globally and in the Americas -- by their ability to provide the best stock prices to institutional clients.

But more recent years have proven challenging. Hedge funds began curtailing their dealings with Deutsche Bank and shifted business to rival firms after the U.S. Justice Department pressed the German lender in 2016 to pay $14 billion to settle an investigation into residential mortgage-backed securities. The firm suffered its worst hemorrhage of liquidity since the 2008 financial crisis, with private banks and money managers at one point pulling $10 billion in a single day. The firm months later settled the probe for $7.2 billion and raised capital.

Last month, Deutsche Bank named Christian Sewing as its CEO and said it will scale back some of international operations, including making cuts to its equities business. It was the fourth turnaround plan for Europe’s largest investment bank in the past three years.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sonali Basak in New York at sbasak7@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, David Scheer, Dan Reichl

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