Russia’s RenCap hires James Friel from Rothschild to run global investment banking

By Andrei Skvarsky.

Renaissance Capital, a key Russian privately-owned investment bank, has hired James Friel from global financial consultancy Rothschild as global head of investment banking with effect from September.

During his 10-year tenure as head of business for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States at Rothschild, Friel advised major Russian companies on large-scale deals.

He advised AAR on the $28bn sale of its stake in TNK-BP to Rosneft and was consulted by Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender, on its $3.5bn acquisition of DenizBank in Turkey.

He also advised major aluminium producer Rusal on the restructuring of its $17bn debt, on its $2.2bn IPO in Hong Kong and on two refinancing deals, one worth $4.75bn and the other $400m.

He also has numerous mergers and acquisitions on his Rothschild record. The scope of his duties at the advisory firm included the global steel sector.

Before joining Rothschild, Friel spent eight and a half years in London- and Paris-based jobs at financial advisory and asset management firm Lazard, where he was involved in big-scale European transactions.

Among them were Eurotunnel’s restructuring of a £6bn debt, water and waste management company Veolia Environnement’s $610m disposal of water filtration company Culligan to investment firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, and Veolia’s buyout of Southern Water Services and associated £2 billion securitisation.

Friel will be based in Moscow but travel to Sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of RenCap’s geography, the bank said in a statement.

He will report directly to RenCap chief executive Igor Vayn.

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