Citi fundraisers surface at Credit Suisse, Helix, BC Partners

Senior ex-members of the Citi Alternative Investments fund placement team, which is currently being wound down, have surfaced at rival placement firms and private equity groups.

Andrew Wilbur, the former co-head for Europe and the Middle East of Citi’s Alternatives Distribution Group, has joined the private funds group at Credit Suisse. He joined the team, now home to around 60 fundraisers, over the summer to cover his old stomping ground of institutions in Europe and the Middle East.

Joe Nagae, another former director within Citi’s team, has, according to one market source, moved to Jeffries Helix, the placement agent arm of investment bank Jeffries. The bank did not respond to requests for confirmation.

Meanwhile Laurent de Rosière, who had co-headed the European Citi team alongside Wilbur, has joined BC Partners to bolster the European private equity firm’s in-house investor relations team.

De Rosière is joined at BC Partners by fellow Citi director Amy Richards and two other capital raisers: Richard Kunzer, formerly a global private equity product specialist with Credit Suisse Alternative Investments; and Laura Coquis, a former principal from within Atlantic-Pacific Capital.

The rash of hires at BC Partners comes as the firm gears up to raise its next large buyout vehicle. It is likely to commence fundraising towards the end of 2010, a spokesman for the firm said. Its last fund closed in 2005 on €5.5 billion.

Elsewhere Scott White, formerly head of deal execution at Citi Alternative Investments, has joined Toronto-headquartered Brookfield Asset Management. As exclusively revealed by PEO in August, Brookfield is building a team of capital-raisers with a view to becoming a placement agent for third party funds. To date it has only raised capital for its proprietary investment vehicles.

Details of Citi’s withdrawal from the third party fund placement market emerged in April. The group was founded in the 1990s by the bank’s former rainmaker Michael Klein. Its 40-strong team grew to become a major force in private fund placement, advising such managers as 3i, Blackstone, Lion Capital, Terra Firma, Nordic Capital and Gilde Buyout Funds.

The closing of Citi’s placement business comes amid difficult market conditions for private equity fundraisers. This year to date only $88 billion has been raised globally, compared to $415 billion during 2008, according to sister data provider privateequityconnect.com.

Over the course of the summer the team has dissipated leaving just “two or three” professionals raising capital for some of Citi’s proprietary investment vehicles, according to one source, who added: “The wind-down is pretty much complete.”

In recent years the Citi team was run by Douglas Blagdon from New York. Blagdon last year helped oversee its merger with the bank’s Alternative Investment Area, its internal fund marketing division. He is now a managing director at SAC Capital Advisers, the alternatives manager founded by hedge fund doyenne Steven Cohen.