Deutsche Lands Merrill Vet to Lead Investment Banking

Deutsche Morgan Grenfell Inc. continued to swipe talent from Merrill Lynch & Co. this week, snagging C. Edward Carter to be managing director and head of investment banking.

Mr. Carter, 44, was a 16-year veteran of Merrill, where he had been managing director of the consumer group focused on retailing, food, and beverages.

He will report to W. Carter McClelland, president and chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank North America and one of the heads of global investment banking for Deutsche Morgan Grenfell.

Deutsche's latest hiring reflects its aggressive approach to building its investment banking prowess by grabbing Wall Street's hottest bankers.

A steady flow of bankers has worn a path from Merrill to Deutsche ever since Edson Mitchell, co-chief of Merrill's global fixed income group and chairman of its derivative products group, joined Deutsche as worldwide head of global markets in April 1995.

"We will be one of the few financial institutions able to offer an integrated universal bank" in the United States, Mr. McClelland said, "with a full range of corporate finance products, including commercial lending."

Bankers from Morgan Stanley & Co. have also moved to Deutsche Morgan Grenfell in the past year, since Frank Quattrone, now chief executive of the technology group at Deutsche Bank's U.S. investment banking unit, and several colleagues moved over in April 1996.

Wall Street recruiters were not surprised by Mr. Carter's hiring, calling it the continuation of a strategy that has enabled Deutsche Morgan Grenfell to amass a solid team of bankers with strong skills.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, NationsBank's Teresa Radzinski, 33, joined Smith Barney's debt capital markets division as a vice president. Ms. Radzinski was a nine-year veteran of the Charlotte, N.C., banking company, where she had been a senior vice president in insurance corporate finance. She will report to Christopher C. Lynch, head of Smith Barney's debt capital markets coverage group.

"We are seeing growing activity in financing," Mr. Lynch said, "and the overall consolidation in the industry has created significant opportunities. Financial institutions is one area that we're very focused on."

Mr. Lynch added that he would continue to hire for and build the group. Questions about NationsBank's commitment to its nontraditional banking businesses have recently emerged, including a rumor-vehemently denied by the bank-that it wants to sell its foreign exchange operations.

"People are not sure of NationsBank's commitment to capital markets and investment banking," said executive recruiter Scott Page, president of Solomon Page in New York, noting the steady outflow from the bank for the past year.

Michael Zupon, a managing director in leveraged finance, joined Merrill Lynch's loan syndications group last month.

A NationsBank spokeswoman said that the banking company is "very committed" to its corporate finance and capital markets businesses.

"What we're seeing is not a fulfillment of this perception people have of us shrinking," she said. "We are absolutely building and continuing to grow."

The spokeswoman noted that the bank's global finance group had grown from 5,091 employees to 5,640 last year; corporate finance, from 2,200 to 2,500; and capital markets, from 1,500 to 1,950.

In another Wall Street move, Omar Zeolla, a fixed-income analyst for emerging markets at Lehman Brothers Inc. joined ING Barings Monday. Mr. Zeolla, 35, will report to Anne Milne, director of Latin American corporate debt research.

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