Citigroup Inc., capitalizing on Wall Street's instability, is hiring a new top mergers-and-acquisitions banker from a fallen rival.
Mark G. Shafir, who was the global co-head of M&A at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., is expected to join Citigroup in the same capacity, according to people familiar with the matter.
Citigroup was trying to lure Shafir before Lehman this month entered a tailspin that culminated in it filing for bankruptcy Monday, the people said. Since then, Barclays PLC has agreed to buy Lehman's capital-markets business, which includes its investment bankers.
Shafir's defection to Citigroup underscores a key risk for Barclays in its $1.75 billion acquisition of Lehman - the possible loss of top talent. Shafir, who joined Lehman in 2003 from Thomas Weisel Partners Group Inc., is one of its highest-profile bankers; he spent last weekend helping to arrange a rushed sale to Barclays. With Wall Street in turmoil, banks have been intensifying their efforts to hire key rainmakers, and the uncertainty at Lehman could make it ripe for poaching.
Barclays President Robert E. Diamond Jr. has made the retention of senior Lehman bankers a top priority. Lehman employees have been broken into categories such as "key" and "critical," according to a bankruptcy filing. That filing said that "approximately 200 employees of the sellers have been designated as key to the success of the business, and 8 employees have been designated as critical...The retention of a substantial majority of key employees, and all 8 critical employees, is a condition precedent to the closing."
It isn't clear if Shafir was one of those eight "critical employees."
Shafir is filling a void left by Citigroup's prior global head of M&A, Frank Yeary, who left in June to become a vice chancellor at University of California, Berkeley. Shafir will report to investment-banking co-heads Raymond McGuire and Alberto Verme.
Shafir's brother Rob was a longtime Lehman executive until he left last year for a job at Credit Suisse Group, where he now runs the asset-management business.
