Online Exclusive--Ex-Merrill Investment Banker Latest Hire in Deutsche Bank Talent Build-Up

Deutsche Bank AG, which has been trying to improve its position as a leader in capital markets transactions, said Friday that it has hired Seth Waugh, a former head of fixed income at Merrill Lynch & Co.

Over the last year Deutsche has been selectively adding veteran bankers who bring a long list of clients in a particular industry or region. In December the bank's investment banking unit, Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown, named George Stamas, a Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering lawyer, as a vice chairman and head of mid-Atlantic investment banking, in a drive to increase its business with emerging-growth companies in the region.

Mr. Waugh, 41, had co-headed debt capital markets at Merrill Lynch, the No. 1 underwriter of corporate debt, which he joined in 1988. Deutsche was the 16th-largest underwriter of corporate debt last year, according to Thomson Financial Securities Data.

Mr. Waugh will sit on Deutsche's executive management committee for the Americas as a vice chairman and will be a senior banker responsible for coordinating client relationships and cross-selling Deutsche products in the Americas, a new position.

He will also be managing director and regional head of Deutsche's global markets division, its debt unit, which is run by Edson V. Mitchell in London. Mr. Waugh will report to Mr. Mitchell and to John A. Ross, chief executive officer of Deutsche Bank Americas.

He starts April 3 and will be based in New York, Deutsche said in a statement Friday.

The $869 billion German banking company said this month that it would merge with rival Dresdner Bank AG and would focus the combined entity on corporate and investment banking.

When Merrill shuffled its fixed-income management in the wake of the market turmoil sparked by trouble in Asia and Russia in 1998, Mr. Waugh was named a London-based deputy head of global debt markets, overseeing Merrill's European expansion.

He left Merrill in January 1999 to become president and chief executive officer of Quantitative Financial Strategies, a hedge fund in Conshohocken, Pa., that is now based in Greenwich, Conn., and manages $2 billion in assets.

"Seth's background and experience are an excellent fit with Deutsche Bank's regional growth plans," Mr. Ross said.

Mr. Waugh left the hedge fund last fall, telling reporters that he missed Wall Street action. He could not be reached for comment Friday.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM AMERICAN BANKER