Jefferies poaches RBC senior bankers in expansion drive

Jefferies has hired Dai Clement and Lorna Shearin from Royal Bank of Canada to develop its power, utilities and infrastructure business, as part of a wider investment banking expansion, banking sources said on Tuesday.

Dai Clement will become global head of power, utilities and infrastructure investment banking at Jefferies, while Lorna Shearin will be the European head from April. Both will be based in London, the sources told Reuters.

Clement was European head of utilities at RBC, while Shearin headed the bank's infrastructure team in Europe. RBC said on its website that during the first half of 2017, it had advised on nine infrastructure transactions, totalling more than $27 billion globally.

Jefferies declined to comment on the new hires, while RBC confirmed both Clement and Shearin had decided to leave the Canadian bank at the start of the year. Clement and Shearin did not respond to requests for comment on their moves.

Jefferies, a unit of Leucadia National Corp , has been on a recent hiring spree, adding 11 managing directors in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) over the past year, including investment bankers from JP Morgan, HSBC, Nomura and boutique bank Perella Weinberg.

It has also hired Raj Khatri from Australia's Macquarie as its European head of metals and mining.

Khatri is due to start in February, while Ed Matthews is expected to join the UK investment team from investment group Shore Capital in April.

Jefferies ranked 19 in the 2017 European M&A financial advisory table compiled by Thomson Reuters, up from 39 in 2016.

(Reporting by Clara Denina and Ron Bousso; additional reporting by Dasha Afanasieva; editing by Alexander Smith)