New York – Mizuho Americas today announced the continued expansion of its US equity platform with the addition of a senior event-driven sales team specializing in risk arbitrage, M&A, SPACs, spin-offs, when issued securities and other special situations.
The new team is led by Sebastian Boulan, Head of the Event-Driven Group, and includes senior sales-trader Brian E. Smith and strategist Greg Lantz. Boulan, Smith and Lantz all join Mizuho as Managing Directors from Sterne Agee CRT’s Risk Arbitrage group and report to Matthew DeSalvo, Executive Managing Director and Head of US Equities.
“The seniority and experience of this team provides a unique opportunity to accelerate the build-out of our event-driven capabilities so we can continue to not only meet, but exceed, client demands with a stronger full service equities platform and more diversified product set in the US,” said DeSalvo.
Boulan joins Mizuho after his tenure as Head of the Risk Arbitrage group at Sterne Agee CRT. Previously, he was the head of the Event-Driven Group at BNP Paribas and Morgan Stanley. He received an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from Dartmouth College.
At CRT, Smith traded all announced merger names and covered a wide variety of investors for merger, event and long/short products. Before that, he was an event-driven sales-trader at Citigroup and served in the Special Situations group at Jefferies. Smith graduated from Middlebury College.
Lantz comes to Mizuho with over sixteen years of event-driven investing experience. After starting his career at Tribeca Investments as a merger arbitrage analyst, he has been on the sell-side since 2009 as an event-driven strategist at Oppenheimer, BNP Paribas and Sterne Agee CRT. He has an MBA from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and a BBA from William & Mary.
About Mizuho Americas
Mizuho Americas comprises several legal entities, which together offer clients corporate and investment banking, financing, securities, treasury services, asset management, research and more. With professionals in offices throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Chile, Mizuho’s operations in the Americas connect a broad client base of major corporations, financial institutions and public sector groups to local markets and a vast global network.
The Mizuho Americas group of companies is an integral part of the Japan-based Mizuho Financial Group, Inc.(NYSE: MFG). Mizuho Financial Group is one of the largest financial institutions in the world, offering comprehensive financial and strategic services including private banking and venture capital through its subsidiaries. The Group has over 56,000 employees in 920 offices in nearly 40 countries throughout the Americas, EMEA and Asia. At the end of March 2016, its total assets were $1.8 trillion.