Stephen Jennings, the New Zealander who co-founded Renaissance Capital in 1995, will return as chief executive of the investment bank to guide its expansion into Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the bank said Friday.
Jennings, 49, replaces Alexander Pertsovsky, who becomes president and first deputy CEO, while Ruben Aganbegyan will move from president to deputy CEO, Renaissance Group said in an e-mailed statement. Jennings, who stepped down as CEO of RenCap in mid-2007, will remain CEO of the group, which includes asset management, merchant banking and consumer finance units.
Renaissance also hired four senior managers, including Nick Andrews from JPMorgan Chase as global head of equities. Andrews had run JPMorgan’s Asia-Pacific and emerging markets equities team from Hong Kong since 2005. Ashar Qureshi, a partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, was named executive vice chairman of Renaissance Group.
“Future growth in investment banking will come from the emerging markets and in particular from the integration of the major emerging markets and gradual disintermediation of the West,” Jennings said in the statement.
The hires come 16 months after a record rout in Russian stocks forced Renaissance Capital to cut jobs and sell half the brokerage to billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov for $500 million.
Jennings reached an accord two months ago with the former Indian partner of Goldman Sachs Group, Kotak Mahindra Bank, to advise clients on takeovers in emerging markets. That was followed by the purchase in January of a 9.9 percent stake in corporate finance boutique Strand Hanson Ltd. to help companies raise money on London’s AIM market.
Earlier this month, RenCap agreed to buy Leadbank from Bank of Cyprus to boost its currency trading operations and named Yury Gruzglin global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities.
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