At the top of the tree in investment banking, people moves are glacial affairs – six-month notice periods, gardening leave and, increasingly, “puritanism and risk aversion” delaying the hiring process.
The swift moves of senior FIG banker, Gareth Braithwaite, are all the more surprising, therefore. Braithwaite has just joined Lloyds Banking Group as managing director in its institutional insurance group. Only four months ago, he had joined Standard Chartered in the newly-created position of head of European banks and insurance.
Braithwaite’s exit from Standard Chartered has been recorded on the Financial Conduct Authority register, but such a short stint has been conveniently wiped from his LinkedIn profile.
It may simply be that Braithwaite decided to return to his core expertise as an insurance-focused investment banker. Before joining Standard Chartered, he spent three years as a managing director with Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s insurance advisory business and was RBS’s global head of insurance for five years prior to that. And before joining RBS, Braithwaite was head of insurance origination at Barclays, where he worked for seven years.
Braithwaite could also have been taking advantage of the new found appetite to hire investment bankers for the advisory business, particularly in FIG. He could not be reached for comment.
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