Matthew Grounds may have earlier fended off suggestions he is interested in starting up a boutique firm to compete against his former employer UBS, but talk continues to persist that he could be making the move and taking some of his old employees with him.
The suggestion is one that has previously been dismissed outright by Mr Grounds, who was the UBS country head for 11 years and who left the investment bank last year as the No 1 in equities and mergers and acquisitions.
But regardless of his next move, it begs the question of what is in store for other high-profile investment bankers who have recently departed financial powerhouses.
The latest of the big names in banking to call time on their careers in the bulge bracket firms is Andrew Best, who in the past two years has been head of investment banking at JPMorgan in Australia and helped net the bank some of its largest deals.
The thinking is that Mr Best could resurface within boardrooms, given his 30 years’ experience at JPMorgan working across markets trading and investment banking is likely to serve any company well.
The 59-year-old veteran banker, who headed the local financial institution groups before heading the overall investment banking operations here, has spearheaded the sale of NAB’s life insurance operations to Nippon Life in 2016 for $2.4bn, CBA’s life insurance business to AIA for $2.4bn, and the NSW land title and registry business to Hastings Funds Management in 2017 for $2.6bn.
Other financial industry veterans who have recently departed leading banking jobs have ventured into new pursuits.
This year, Deutsche Bank’s
co-head of corporate finance, James Roth, left Deutsche Bank to join boutique advisory firm Record Point.
Michael Stock, who ran investment banking at Credit Suisse, left the Swiss bank to launch a New Australian office for Jefferies in 2018, while at UBS, Mr Grounds followed colleague Guy Fowler out the door last year. Mr Fowler was also considered to be one of the top dealmakers in senior banking circles.
On Wednesday it was announced that high-profile investment banker Andrew Pridham would move from chief executive of Moelis Australia into the role of vice-chairman.
It is a role that will see him with more of an involvement with clients rather than a role running the day-to-day operations of the investment bank, which is now in the hands of Julian Biggins and Chris Wyke.
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