Lehman Bros. hiring spree picks up steam

If you don’t have a scorecard, you’ll have a hard time tracking the impact of Lehman Brothers’ desire to build a Canadian platform to service the larger Canadian investment banking clients. If you want to build a 30 person i-banking team, you need 30 guys and gals who are currently gainfully employed somewhere else. And with the 2006 bonus season now well behind us, the movement has begun in earnest.

First they hired the uniquely talented Geoff Belsher away from BMO Capital Markets in Chicago last fall, which was a loss for them on many levels. Then Lehman picked off a couple of predictable transaction execution types in Toronto, one of which came from Belsher’s alma mater.

Now Lehman Canada appears to have hired an entire four person i-banking team from CIBC World Markets in Calgary, causing CIBC to poach an RBC Capital Markets banker from Houston (that’s what they call i-bankers down there) to fill the leadership hole created in Calgary (this last bit of info courtesy of recruiter Thorke/Scott).

Got all that?

If you think you are a top notch investment banker with coverage responsibilities in the TSX 60 universe, Lehman Canada might have a few lumber contracts (a lumber contract is a two by four, or a one by three; ie, the guaranteed annual $ comp times the number of years in your guarantee) left to dole out, particularly if you’re in the mining or telecom game.

MRM