Credit Suisse Hires Jerry Wiant From Lazard to Run Banks M&A

(Bloomberg) -- Credit Suisse Group AG has hired investment banker Jerry Wiant from Lazard Ltd., where he had a two-year stint as a managing director focused on banking institutions.

Wiant will join Credit Suisse’s global financial institutions later this summer as a managing director and head of Americas banks, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg. He joined Lazard in 2017 from Royal Bank of Canada, where he had been co-head of U.S. financial institutions.

"Over his career, Jerry has originated and advised clients on numerous domestic and cross-border M&A transactions with aggregate deal value of over $100 billion," Alejandro Przygoda, Credit Suisse’s global head of financial institutions, said in the memo.

A representative for the Zurich-based bank confirmed the contents of the memo. A representative for Lazard declined to comment.

The hire comes as investment banks look to add financial institutions dealmakers in anticipation of heavy consolidation among banks, insurers and asset managers. BB&T Corp. agreed to buy SunTrust Banks Inc. for $28 billion in February in the largest bank merger in more than a decade.

Last year, Credit Suisse hired financial technology banker Mathieu Salas from Citigroup Inc.

Wiant has worked on transactions including Royal Bank of Canada’s acquisition of City National Corp. in 2015, PNC Financial Services Group Inc.’s takeover of National City Corp. in 2009 and Sterling Bancorp’s purchase of Astoria Financial Corp. in 2017, according to the memo.

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, Matthew Monks, Dan Reichl

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