Six Credit Suisse Bankers Exit as Post-Archegos Defections Mount

Gillian Tan, Kiel Porter and Liana Baker, Bloomberg News

Pedestrians pass the Credit Suisse Group AG headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, on Thursday, April 8, 2021. Credit Suisse Chief Executive Officer Thomas Gottstein gathered dozens of managing directors at the global bank on a conference call late Tuesday, as part of crisis-management efforts after the lender announced that it stands to lose as much as $4.7 billion amid the meltdown of hedge fund Archegos Capital Management. Photographer: Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- A half-dozen senior Credit Suisse Group AG bankers have left the firm in recent weeks, the latest in a raft of defections following the implosion of Archegos Capital Management and uncertainty about future bonuses.

Jason Wortendyke, global co-head of mobility and services, rejoined Citigroup Inc. to run diversified industrials along with Francis Tucci, according to a memo seen by Bloomberg News. Wortendyke will also co-head the Chicago office alongside Matt Musa. Wortendyke worked at Citigroup in London and Hong Kong before joining Credit Suisse.

Other departures include New York-based Ihsan Essaid, Credit Suisse’s head of media and telecommunications mergers and acquisitions, and San Francisco-based Kamal Ahmed, a managing director focused on semiconductors in the firm’s technology investment-banking group. Both are joining Barclays Plc, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Essaid will be co-head of mergers and acquisitions in the Americas and Ahmed will be global head of semiconductor investment banking.

Credit Suisse was the biggest loser when the world’s top investment banks raced to exit trading positions as Archegos collapsed, pushing it into a 900 million-franc ($997 million) pretax loss for the first quarter and prompting a management shakeup. The Zurich-based company slashed the amount of money set aside for employee bonuses by hundreds of millions of dollars and used the savings to limit the financial hit from Archegos.

Among the other recent departures, Leo Reif, a New York-based managing director within the firm’s health-care group, left to join Jefferies Financial Group Inc., said a person with knowledge of the matter.

Stephanie Ruiz, a managing director within the group’s global industrials investment-banking arm, has left for another opportunity, according to a person familiar with the matter. And New York-based Simon Auerbach, a managing director focused on business and information services, has also exited to join Lazard Ltd., some of the people said.

Representatives for Credit Suisse, Barclays and Jefferies declined to comment, and Lazard didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A Citigroup representative confirmed the contents of the memo and declined to comment further.

The exits follow those of four financial-institutions group bankers who left to join Barclays Plc, Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Australian M&A executive Kierin Deeming, who moved to JPMorgan.

Read more: Barclays Hires Credit Suisse Banker Devine as Co-Head of FIG M&A