Deutsche hires Citi veteran as its next global M&A chief

Dive Brief:

Deutsche Bank has named Citi veteran Alison Harding-Jones as its next global head of mergers and acquisitions, the German lender said Thursday in a statement seen by the Financial Times and Reuters.
The hire comes at a time when M&A transactions slumped by 17% last year worldwide, to $2.9 trillion. Deal volume found its sharpest decline — 28% from a year earlier — in Europe, where Deutsche is based. At the same time, M&A fees dropped 26% in 2023, to $29 billion, according to the Financial Times.
Harding-Jones, who left Citi last March as the bank’s head of M&A for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, starts at Deutsche next week and will report to Mark Fedorcik, co-head of Deutsche’s investment bank, the lender said.

Dive Insight:

Harding-Jones’ hire looks unlikely to shake up the ranks at Deutsche. Berthold Fürst and Bruce Evans, who had been running the bank’s M&A business on an interim basis since October 2022, will continue as head of investment banking coverage for EMEA and the Americas, respectively, Deutsche’s statement said.

The bank’s previous global head of M&A, Drew Goldman, left Deutsche to become global head of real estate for the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

“I look forward to her leadership in taking our global M&A franchise to the next level,” Fedorcik said of Harding-Jones. “She has … over 30 years of experience negotiating complex, high-profile transactions across multiple different sectors and regions.”

Among Harding-Jones’ biggest deals are Philip Morris’ acquisition of the smokeless tobacco firm Swedish Match in late 2022, as well as the £4 billion acquisition of U.K. department store Selfridges by Signa and Central Group in 2021.

Deutsche is looking to boost its profile as an M&A adviser; it ranked 17th worldwide in both 2022 and 2023, according to the Financial Times. Goldman Sachs in 2023 retained its position as the segment’s leader for the seventh straight year. Citi, Harding-Jones’ former employer, ranked eighth last year.

Harding-Jones joined Citi in 2017 after a 28-year stint at UBS.