Stock expected to take reins at Jefferies after CLSA staff raid

CLSA global CEO Jonathan Slone at their Sydney offices. Picture: John Feder

The staff raid by New York-listed Jefferies on CLSA, to ramp up in Australia, is expected to see Jefferies investment banking boss Michael Stock take the reins as country head.

Sources said former CLSA global chief executive Jonathan Slone, who resigned in March, is set to take up a senior role for Jefferies in Asia as part of the plan. Dataroom understands that position may be non-executive chairman of Jefferies’ Asian operations.

Mr Stock declined to comment on Sunday. Before joining investment banking and equities firm Jefferies early last year, he led Credit Suisse’s local investment banking unit and prior to that worked with UBS.

The lifting of about 26 staff from CLSA by Jefferies on Friday, revealed by The Australian, is one of the biggest ever raids in Australian banking. CLSA is a stockbroking and research house that was acquired by China’s CITIC in 2013.

The resignations occurred late on Friday and included CLSA Australian boss Andrew Norman, head of research Richard Johnson, sales chief Ed Clegg and head of trading Karl Guilfoyle.

The exits – which span research analysts, sales traders and equity staff – cover more than a third of CLSA’s Australian employees.

The CLSA investment banking team of about 10 people were not part of the mass resignations as Jefferies has built out its own team under Mr Stock.

Following the blow to its local operations it will be interesting to see if CLSA chooses to rebuild. Firms including Malaysia’s CIMB and Japan’s Nomura are among those that have quit the Australian equities trading market over the past decade.

Globally, CLSA made headlines after Mr Slone resigned in March and was followed by other senior staff.

The departures are said to be linked to large cuts to the firm’s bonus pool and the expiry of an agreement late last year that ensured that CLSA was run at arm’s length by CITIC.