US based multinational investment bank and financial service provider Jefferies Group LLC, has poached yet another executive from its Rival broker CLSA. The Hong Kong based investment and asset management service provider CLSA has lost many of its key employees to Jefferies in recent month. The most recent move from Jefferies is to hire Brian Johnson, a renowned banking analyst in Australian office of CLSA as Jefferies boosts its business operations and product offerings in Australia to increase its market share. While Brian’s move to Jefferies hasn’t been updated in his official LinkedIn profile, the news of same was reported in an local news paper and Reuters website with reports hinting that CLSA has lost more than two dozen employees to Jefferies in recent months.
According to a report published in The Australian, the Hong Kong based firm has lost a total of 27 employees to its rival broker. As per report in Reuters, an anonymous source stated that employees from CLSA who went on to join Jefferies were from wide array of specialties such as equities, sales, research and trading divisions. The Hong Kong based investment and asset management service provider is an offshore arm of Chinese investment bank CITIC Securities Co Ltd. According to various reports in media, the high staff turnover in Australia including top executives at CLSA was caused due to differences in strategy with its state backed parent company. As per report in finance magnates website, Jonathan Slone – Ex CEO of CLSA resigned from the firm owing to issues stemming from difference over strategy.
Post Slone’s resignation, his role as CEO was succeeded by Rick Gould back in April 2019 prior to which he served as CEO for their business operations in Americas region. Similar to Jonathan Slone, CLSA’s Chairman Tang Zhenyi also resigned from his role and cut ties with the investment firm in early March when CITIC was taking efforts to revamp CLSA’s daily operations. Back in 2017, CLSA closed down a significant part of its business including the research division based in USA. As the firm closed its research division in US, it decided to aggressively push into investment banking services as earnings declined for the state backed parent company over the course of last two years since the boom it saw back in 2015 post which trading volume continues to remain at low level s both in Hong Kong and Mainland China.
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