(Bloomberg) -- At least eight senior Credit Suisse Group AG bankers are leaving the firm for Banco Santander SA, including mergers and acquisitions chief Steve Geller, according to people familiar with the matter. 

Others joining Geller, who was promoted in January to head of investment banking and capital markets M&A, include: 

• Rob Santangelo, a well-known energy dealmaker who was most recently co-head of energy and infrastructure
• Tom Davidov, who was head of Americas financial sponsors, according to his LinkedIn profile
• David Hermer, global head of equity and debt capital markets
• Jeff Cohen, Max Lipkind and Jonathan Moneypenny, who are all leveraged-finance bankers
• Dean Decker, a gaming banker

The moves reflect how Banco Santander is expanding in the US, said one of the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn’t public. 

Representatives for Credit Suisse and Santander declined to comment. 

The bankers are the latest senior departures from Credit Suisse in the wake of its forced sale to UBS Group AG. The Financial Times first reported that Banco Santander was in talks to hire several senior Credit Suisse bankers. 

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