Moelis & Co adds new semiconductor banker -memo

By Liana B. Baker

July 13 (Reuters) - Moelis & Co has hired investment banker Zach Righellis as a managing director to build up a practice in global semiconductors, one of the most active areas this year in technology dealmaking, the company said on Monday.

Righellis, who was previously at Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) , will be based in Palo Alto and focus on clients in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Israel. Moelis made the announcement in a memo published on Monday.

Semiconductor dealmaking has reached $79.7 billion so far this year, an amount that already surpasses every full-year period on record, with the exception of 2000, when M&A in the sector hit $115.5 billion.

Righellis represented semiconductor maker Silicon Image this year on its sale to connectivity chip maker Lattice Semiconductor Corp. Earlier in his career, he helped advise Qualcomm Inc on the divestiture of vehicle fleet technology company Omnitracs LLC to Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm..

The boutique advisory firm has been adding to its TMT investment banking ranks in recent months. It hired Barclays (Swiss: BARC.SW - news) tech analyst Ben Reitzes as a managing director in March. Telecom specialist Lawrence Chu, who joins from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and Green Hill & Co, will start later this summer. (Reporting by Liana B. Baker; Editing by Bernard Orr)