Ardea Partners, the new boutique bank launched in July last year by Goldman Sachs’ co-chairman of investment banking, Chris Cole, has been hiring from his former employer and other investment banks as it builds a new team.
Ardea was always likely to be a gathering of former Goldman Sachs bankers. Shortly after its decision to launch a UK-based office in September last year – in addition to those in Princeton, New Jersey and New York – it brought in Robert Falzon, a former managing director in European industrials at Goldman, to lead its London office and was reportedly scouting for other senior Goldmanites.
Last month, Ardea was given the formal thumbs up by UK regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), but Falzon remains its only London-based employee. Elsewhere in the U.S., Ardea has been busy building its team.
Predictably, most new recruits have been poached from Goldman Sachs’ investment banking division. Mark Jazbik, a former investment banking analyst within Goldman’s natural resources team, has joined as an associate, as has Ethan Mitchell, another Goldman analyst in New York. Khalil Pettus, who was promoted to an associate within Goldman’s financial institutions investment banking group earlier this year, also signed up to Ardea as an associate in October.
Other recruits to join Ardea in the U.S. this year include Sahil Khatod, who was previously an investment associate at Bridgewater Associates, Lucie Ondraschkova, a former Goldman Sachs associate who joined as a vice president, James Amen, previously an associate at private equity firm FFL, and William Skolnik, an ex-Barclays TMT analyst who was latterly working as a tech analyst at Citadel, who joined as an associate in February.
Cole has amassed a number of former Goldman Sachs heavy-hitters within his executive team. James Del Favero, its former head of cross-border M&A, is a co-founder along with Ivan Ross, a partner who led the bank’s corporate finance solutions group – which structures complex capital markets deals. Don Truesdale, Goldman’s former head of technology and a partner at the firm, joined as chief executive in June. He left Goldman in October last year, and spent eight months running his own consulting firm.
Ardea describes itself as a “private investment banking advisory firm” that offers “strategic and financial advice” to CEOs, boards and sovereign wealth funds.
Contact for news, tips and comments: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com
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