MOVES-Jefferies hires two energy bankers from Barclays

By Davide Scigliuzzo

NEW YORK, Jan 5 (IFR) - Jefferies has hired two senior leveraged finance bankers focused on the energy sector from Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) , two people familiar with the situation told IFR on Thursday.

The pair, Paul Cugno and Robert Anderson, will start in their new roles as managing directors on Monday.

They have worked together for 12 years, first at Lehman Brothers and then at Barclays after the British bank purchased the former's North American investment banking and capital markets business in 2008.

At Barclays, Cugno most recently served as head of natural resources, power and infrastructure debt capital markets, while Anderson worked as a managing director in the high-yield and leveraged loan capital markets group.

Cugno joined Lehman's leveraged finance business in 2000 after a three-year stint at Scotia Capital, while Anderson joined the bank in 2004, according to their LinkedIn (Swiss: LNKD.SW - news) profiles.

Jefferies has made an aggressive push to bolster its leveraged financing business in recent months, attempting to hire a number of senior investment bankers from Credit Suisse (IOB: 0QP5.IL - news) before the Swiss bank managed to convince the majority of them to stay.

Barclays declined to comment. (Reporting by Davide Scigliuzzo; Editing by Natalie Harrison)