By Marcus Williams

Cem Habib, a partner and head of the fund of hedge funds business at Cheyne Capital, has quit the firm to join an investment bank in Kazakhstan.

The Turkish born financier Habib will work in a private equity role with a Kazakh investment bank, according to a Reuters report.

Habib, whose missus had dalliances with Hugh Grant and Prince Andrew amongst others, won’t be foresaking quite all of Mayfair’s pleasures for the Kazakh steppes. Apparently, he will spend 10 days a month there and does not plan to fully relocate to Central Asia.

Cheyne manages around $5 billion in assets, which probably doesn’t include much in Kazakhstan.

By Ivan Anderzhanov

A senior shake-up at Credit Suisse has left the investment bank without a Moscow-based head to cover the Russia, the CIS and Turkey region.

The current incumbent Fawzi Kyriakos-Saad is moving to London to replace Eric Varvel as head of Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Varvel has been named as chief executive officer of the bank to replace Paul Calello who is suffering from a serious illness.

Kyriakos-Saad joined Credit Suisse in 2006 from JP Morgan Chase, where he worked in a variety of senior fixed income and emerging market management roles. Before joining JP Morgan, he spent eight years at Goldman Sachs in New York and London.

He will retain his role as co-head of the global emerging markets council. His replacement in Moscow is expected to be made by an internal promotion.

By Ivan Anderzhanov

Russian brokerage Otkritie is strengthening is UK operations with the promotion of London-based Howard Snell to the role of executive chairman and Evgeny Kunts to the position of deputy chief executive officer.

The firm also said that it will be building up its sales trading team based in London over the next year while Nicholas Richmond, its head of equity trading, will be relocating from Moscow to London.

Roman Lokhov, chief executive at Otkritie, said in a statement: “We aim to build on our recent growth and continue to increase our market share across our target businesses.”

By Andrei Skvarsky

Mike Pendill has been appointed as Middle East head of Citigroup’s Global Subsidiaries Group (GSG) in a move that reflects the firm’s focus on multinational corporations operating in the Middle East.

Pendill, who will be based in Dubai, transfers from New York, where he has led the GSG business in North America, one of GSG’s largest markets, since 1999. A 30-year Citigroup veteran, he helped the bank gain a foothold in Russia and parts of Eastern Europe and steer the US based financial giant’s business in Hong Kong during the Asian crisis and in the midst of the former British colony’s handover to China.

GSG is part of Citigroup Global Markets Limited, Citi’s European investment banking arm, which offers a variety of services for multinational corporations, middle-market enterprises, small businesses and public sector clients.

By Andrei Skvarsky

Russian investment bank Renaissance Capital has confirmed to EmergingMarkets.me it has hired Jose Buera as a London-based director in its special situations group.

Buera’s Rencap job involves managing special situation deals in Africa, the CIS and Russia, and exploring opportunities in other emerging markets, particularly Latin America. The group is headed by Adel Kambar, central Asian CEO.

Before joining Rencap, Buera, a graduate of the University of California in Berkeley, held a series of posts at financial institutions, including senior special situations positions at New York’s BlueCrest Capital Management and London’s Argo Capital Management, and a five-year stint as a senior associate with Morgan Stanley.

Rencap has hired more than 100 bankers so far this year in a drive to hire 200 to 250 personnel.

By Marcus Williams

Crossbridge Capital, an investment advisory firm for entrepreneurs and families, has hired Innokenty Alekseev as director in charge of its Russia and CIS team.

Alekseev joins from a London-based multi-family office, where he had been director, head of advisory and client Relations.  He previously managed the Russia and CIS Trust & Fiduciary Desk at Standard Bank in London.

Based in London, he will report to Tarek Khlat, CEO of Crossbridge Capital. Khlat said the appointment “signals our expansion into new emerging markets which we believe will be receptive to our integrated platform offering of wealth management, merchant banking and principal investment services.”

By Andrei Skvarsky

David May is quitting as head of equity research for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at HSBC, most likely to join Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets, in what is the third high-profile move among bank researchers in about a fortnight, according to Financial News.

Late in April, Richard Taylor stood down as head of European equity research at Citigroup and is expected to move to Jefferies. Early in May, RBC took on Nimrod Schwarzmann as global head of equity research. Before that, Schwarzmann was chief executive of Talisman Global Asset Management, and earlier on headed pan-European research at Deutsche Bank.

Other banks, including Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley are also looking for senior equity researchers.

RBC Capital Markets has been hiring aggressively in Europe. Last year it brought in Josh Critchley from Goldman Sachs to build an equity capital markets and corporate broking business.

May ranks 12th on the 20-name Sammons Associates head of research ranking list for 2009, having risen from 16th position the year before.

By Andrei Skvarsky

The more than 450 fixed income professionals employed by Jefferies across the world include more than 35 focused on emerging markets in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, the bank said.

By Ivan Anderzhanov

In a further sign of a thawing in Anglo-Russo relations, VTB Capital is to sponsor a major series looking at Russian business to be shown on the venerable British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

The series, which will begin transmitting this month, will focus on business across Russia, examining  people, companies and products.

VTB Capital, a state-controlled investment bank, will be undertaking a range of advertising and sponsorship activity around the new programme, according to a statement.

The sponsorship activity is centred “series of 50 second vignettes” and advertising spots around broadcasts of the main 30 minute programme.

VTB will also slaps ads on BBC.com, with advertising around Russia Business Report’s online pages as well as finance and business content and video on demand on the site.

Relations between Britain and Russia hit rock bottom in recent years. Businessmen and investors from Blighty were afraid they might become pariahs in Moscow following a dispute at Anglo-Russian joint venture TNK-BP, the closure of the British Council’s offices in Russia and the Kremlin’s refusal to extradite Andrei Lugovoi, the chief suspect in the London killing of dissident Alexander Litvinenko. Diplomatic relations between the two Governments sank to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Olga Podoinitsyna, a managing director at VTB Capital, said in a statement: “It is a pleasure to be part of a Russia-focused project filmed by BBC World News – a TV channel known for its immaculate reputation and high standards of journalism. This programme will enable viewers across the globe to learn more about the potential of our country and its business opportunities.”

Stone the crows. What next? Deripaska to stump for pimms at the Henley Regatta? Sechin to duet with Sir Cliff Richard at Queens Tennis club? Suggestions on a postcard…

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has lured investment banking rainmaker Christian Meissner from Nomura.

Meissner will report to Michael Rubinoff and Purna Saggurti, co-heads of global investment banking, and drive the growth of the investment banking  franchise across EMEA, according to a statement today.

He will sit on the global corporate & investment banking operating committee chaired by Tom Montag, president of Global Banking & Markets, and also the relevant regional operating committees.

Based in London, Meissner will join the bank in July 2010. He was deputy head of global investment banking at Nomura and one of the few senior Lehman Brothers bankers to remain following its buyout by the Japanese bank.

By Andrei Skvarsky

Mark Robinson has recently stepped down as global head of equity research and chief strategist at Italian bank UniCredit Securities.

Oxford-educated Robinson, who was based in London, quit the bank without having a new role to go to, according to several sources close to the bank.

Operating from Munich, Milan, Vienna, London and centres in the Emerging European region, the equity research team at UniCredit provide analysis of over 500  German, Italian, Austrian and EME companies.

In Russia, the markets & investment banking division is represented via UniCredit Bank and UniCredit Securities. Robinson had recently filled in on Russian strategy coverage.

skvarsky@yahoo.com

By Marcus Williams

Russia’s  RTS stock exchange has opened an office in London to promote products and services and attract international investors to Moscow.

The dollar-denominated bourse obtained registration for its office in London – called RTS Exchange Europe Limited in April, according to a statement.

Yekaterina Troshinkina, a former manager for the McGraw-Hill Companies in Russia, has been hired as its UK head.

Roman Goryunov, chief executive of the RTS, said in a statement: “We see attracting foreign investors to the Russian market as one of our key priorities. Global players will help the Russian securities market pick up liquidity and increase its importance on the international level.”

International investors stampeded out of Moscow in late 2008 in the wake of the Russia’s five-day war with Georgian, the banking crisis and a spate of investor scandals. Foreign funds switched from trading stocks in Moscow to ADRs and GDRs in London and New York after the RTS and the Micex kept suspending trading.

Dominic Bokor-Ingram, head of Renaissance Capital’s London office, added: “As Russia fully recovers from the economic crisis, we expect unprecedented interest in Russia among foreign portfolio investors; the RTS is well positioned to take advantage of this trend.”