BofA rejigs Europe financial services advisory team

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has reshuffled the senior ranks of its team advising financial institutions on mergers and financing in Europe, as it renews efforts to bring in more investment banking fees from that industry.

Henrietta Baldock, who had already been in charge of the European financial institutions group (FIG) since 2009, will now become chair of the FIG investment banking division, an internal memo seen by Reuters showed.

Michael Frieser and Marc Tempelman have been appointed co-heads of financial institutions corporate and investment banking for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

"With this leadership team we are looking to significantly build our market share in this sector," Christian Meissner, the global head of corporate and investment banking, and Bob Elfring, one of Meissner's European deputies, said in the memo.

Bank of America's investment bank has been hit by a series departures and undergone a series of reshuffles this year, with Meissner only moving into the top corporate and investment banking job in January.

The division is in charge of overseeing advisory activity on merger and acquisition deals and stock and debt underwriting.

Earlier this week, BofA ML named capital markets specialist Rupert Hume-Kendall as chairman of corporate and investment banking in EMEA to bolster its coverage of key clients.

BofA ML's financial institutions franchise in particular was hit after star dealmaker Andrea Orcel left for UBS in March.

Orcel counts banks such as Spain's Santander among his biggest clients, and BofA ML had scored a lead role underwriting a bumper rights issue for Italy's UniCredit before his departure.

Baldock, who has been at BofA ML for 12 years, has worked on some big bank deals alongside Orcel, including the ultimately ill-fated acquisition of ABN Amro by RBS , and is also known as an insurance specialist.

In her new position as chair, Baldock will assume a more ambassadorial role rather than a hands-on management job, liaising with key clients and trying to win new business.

The financial institutions industry has remained a big focus area for investment banks even as they cut back in other areas as the flow of deals slows.

In the first nine months of the years, global investment banking fees in the financials sector were just over $15 billion, while income from deals in the energy and power industry for instance brought in $8 billion, according to Thomson Reuters data.

(Reporting by Anjuli Davies; Editing by Mark Potter)