Thursday, May 8, 2008

Report: Merrill lures Goldman’s Kraus

Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. is in talks with Peter Kraus, a former asset management chief of The Goldman Sachs Group Inc., to try to lure him to oversee the firm’s strategy, Bloomberg reported.

Mr. Kraus left Goldman Sachs in March after two decades at the New York-based securities firm; most recently, he was co-head of its asset management division.

Merrill Lynch’s chief executive, John Thain, who worked at Goldman Sachs for 25 years, is trying to recruit more staff members from his old firm in an effort to restore profitability after three straight quarterly earnings losses, according to Bloomberg.

Since taking over as Merrill’s chief in December, he has hired three executives from Goldman Sachs, including Noel Donohoe as co-chief risk officer, May Lee as chief of staff and, most recently, Thomas Montag to run the global-sales-and-trading operation.

Jessica Oppenheim, a spokeswoman for New York-based Merrill Lynch, said the company had no comment on the report.

No comments: