People News - Citi, Goldman, Lazard, Macquarie, Morgan Stanley

Gabriel Roberts, who led global credit-index trading at Citigroup, is joining Saba Capital Management LP, the $5.3bn hedge fund founded by Boaz Weinstein, said people with knowledge of the moves.

Bloomberg reports that Paul Kazarian from Royal Bank of Canada also is going to work at Saba to focus on exchange-traded fund indexes, said one of the people, who asked to not be identified because the appointments haven’t been announced publicly. Roberts, who will start at Saba in New York, was hired by Citigroup in 2011 from Deutsche Bank to oversee trading of benchmark credit-default swaps indexes in North America and Europe.

In the meantime, The Financial Times reports that Goldman Sachs is losing one of its best-known dealmakers with the retirement of Henry Cornell as vice-chairman of its merchant banking division, according to an internal memo distributed earlier this week.

The newspaper says that Cornell, who joined Goldman nearly 30 years ago, played a leading role in some of its most profitable investments on both sides of the Pacific – including those in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, Kinder Morgan and McJunkin Red Man.

And Bloomberg reports that Lazard has said Germany Chairman Ernst Fassbender will retire at the end of this year, ending a 30-year career in investment banking.

Fassbender, 54, based in Frankfurt, is leaving to pursue personal interests. He has been chairman for Germany, Austria, as well as central and eastern Europe since 2011.

Bloomberg also reports that Stanley Hartt, the former chairman of Macquarie's Canadian operations, has been retained as a consultant for the firm’s investment bank.

Finally, Bloomberg reports that Wall Street firms that chopped more than 300,000 jobs in the past two years are hiring in Mexico, where share sales are increasing sixfold and economic growth is topping Brazil’s.

Morgan Stanley has tripled employees in Mexico since 2010 while cutting 7,200 positions globally. JPMorgan Chase & Co. added two floors to the four it had in a 25-story office tower with a view of Mexico City’s central park. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. obtained a brokerage license last year and is boosting staff in the country.

Mexico is luring bankers and traders after the country overtook Brazil as Latin America’s biggest market for equity offerings, with $11.8bn worth of deals since the start of 2012. President Enrique Pena Nieto’s plan to balance the budget and increase private investment in the oil industry is drawing money to an economy expanding at almost twice the pace in the U.S., even though drug-related violence deters some investors.

Saba Said to Hire Citigroup Trader Roberts, RBC’s Kazarian

Veteran dealmaker to retire from Goldman (subscriber content)

Lazard’s Fassbender to Retire After 30 Year Career

Macquarie Rehires Hartt in Canada to Consult for Investment Bank

Morgan Stanley Triples Mexico Staff as IPOs Beat Brazil’s