Goldman Sachs equities head Mario Argyrides leaves

Goldman Sachs head of equities for Australia and New Zealand, Mario Argyrides, has resigned. Picture: Getty Images

Goldman Sachs head of equities for Australia and New Zealand, Mario Argyrides, has resigned from the Wall Street bank to join Jefferies Australia.

Mr Argyrides has worked for Goldman Sachs since September 2017, joining from Macquarie Group.

It follows the departure of Mike Johnson as head of equity sales and Andrew Norman as head of equities from Jefferies Australia in recent weeks.

The Australian reported earlier this month that the equities and research business of Jefferies Australia began after the firm conducted a bold raid of CLSA’s local operations, poaching about 25 employees.

Mr Norman was the country head of CLSA Australia, according to his LinkedIn profile, following stints running Nomura’s equities business and jointly leading Credit Suisse’s unit.

Since setting up here Jefferies now accounts for about 2 per cent of trading across the ASX and Chi-X Australia, given the firm doesn’t participate in high-frequency and other lower margin trading activities.

On another measure, it has about 6.5 per cent of total fund manager wallet.

Accounts lodged with the corporate regulator showed Jefferies Australia generated $102.9m in revenue on a consolidated basis, and net profit of $7.8m for the 12 months ended November 30.

That compared to $127.5m revenue and a $36m profit in the prior corresponding period.

The firm has continued to expand, however, and after setting up an office in Melbourne last year now has about 10 people stationed there.

Across its Australian offices, Jefferies employs about 130 people.

The firm’s local advisory business has mandates including advising private equity giant KKR in its quest to buy Perpetual’s corporate trust and wealth management units.