Barclays Poaches HSBC Investment Banker for U.K. Co-Head Role

Barclays PLC has poached a senior investment banker from HSBC Holdings PLC to co-head its mergers and acquisitions operations in the U.K.

The British-based bank has hired Omar Faruqui to oversee U.K. M&A along with current co-head Derek Shakespeare, according to a memo, as the bank aims to deepen its relationships with U.K. clients.

Based in London, Mr. Faruqui will assume his new role in January and brings over 20 years of investment banking experience across U.K. corporate finance and financial sponsors.

The appointment comes at a time when Barclays is involved in some of the most high-profile U.K. cross-border deals including Vantiv Inc.'s $10 billion-plus cash-and-stock deal to acquire U.K. payments processor Worldpay Group PLC, which was announced in August.

At the same time, the deal making climate in the U.K. is clouded by the uncertain political and economic fallout from Britain's ongoing efforts to split from the European Union. Foreign acquisitions of U.K. companies is down both by total value and volume so far this year from the prior period, according to data provider Deallogic.

That potentially highlights concerns by some foreign companies over the economic outlook for the U.K. Similarly the uncertain political climate may give U.K.-focused companies reason to expand abroad as a way to reduce their reliance on the domestic economy. In support of that view, outbound deal making measured by volume and value is up so far in 2017, according to Dealogic.

Mr. Faruqui was most recently head of M&A origination at HSBC and before that he was European co-head of financial sponsors for the bank. Over the years, the investment banker has worked on several acquisitions and sales for blue-chip U.K. companies including BAE Systems PLC and Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC.

Write to Ben Dummett at ben.dummett@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 17, 2017 09:32 ET (13:32 GMT)