Jefferies’ Australian hiring spree continues

Australian money, notes, coins, income, generic, sharemarket

Jefferies has picked up former JPMorgan director Stephen Blagg to join its equities and research team, taking the size of those operations to 44 staff.

Sources said Mr Blagg would join Jefferies in early January as head of database, which is a research role at the stockbroking and advisory house.

READ MORE: Jefferies seals more hires as it sets up in Sydney

Mr Blagg had been with JPMorgan for 13 years, most recently in a similar database role, and left the firm a few months ago. Prior to that he worked in corporate finance at accounting firm PwC and in equities research at Deutsche Bank.

Jefferies investment banking boss Michael Stock took the reins as country head as the US group embarked on an expansion push in Australia.

Jefferies has been adding to its team after dramatically raiding the ranks of CLSA Australia in June.

The lifting of about 26 staff from CLSA by Jefferies, revealed by The Australian, was one of the biggest ever raids in Australian banking. CLSA, a stockbroking and research house that was acquired by China’s CITIC in 2013, has since restocked its ranks and has picked up a number of staff including several from Deutsche which closed its local equities and research operations.