Rothschild quietly shunted its global heads of ECM into different jobs
It's not a great year for equity capital markets (ECM) bankers anywhere, but one bank at least seems to have decided that it might be a bit better if it had different bankers in charge. Rothschild has quietly moved its existing global heads of ECM into the long grass of vice chairmanship and appointed some new ones instead.
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Claire Sudden-Spiers and Francois Wat, the bank's former co-heads of global ECM are now vice chairs of a new "global markets solutions" (GMS) business concocted to provide "comprehensive capital solutions, market-leading advice and innovative exit strategies" to Rothschild's clients.
The bank now has some new heads of ECM in the form of Antoine de Guillenchmidt and Peter Nicklin in Europe. They are reporting to Aadeesh Aggarwal and Mark Connelly as the global co-heads of GMS.
London-based Sudden-Spiers has been at Rothschild for nearly 30 years. Paris-based Wat has been there 17. Their relegations to chairmen roles might be seen as a soft step towards retirement. Speaking off the record, sources close to Rothschild said vice chairman is a less desirable role because it involves a basic salary, an eat what you kill bonus, a shared office and executive assistant and no or limited managerial responsibility. However, it's seen as preferable to a "special advisor" job, for which there is no salary and only commission based fee income.
De Guillenchmidt left Goldman Sachs for Rothschild last year, months before bonuses were announced. Nicklin has been at Rothschild in London for 23 years. London-based Aggarwal has been there 18 years, focused on financial sponsors. Mark Connelly has been there since 2023 and was captured on Instagram a few months ago, where it was observed that he comports himself like King Charles.
Year-to-date, global equity capital markets revenues are up 4% year-on-year according to Dealogic. However, they're down 8% in Europe. Rothschild's equity capital markets business (known internally as equity marketing services), includes Redburn Atlantic, which was acquired in 2023. Unfortunately, the global ECM business has not been strong since then, and there are suggestions that Rothschild's M&A bankers might be displeased with the new deadweight.
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