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People: July 2001

Graham Hutton leaves Morgan Grenfell Private Equity; Sir Robert Smith takes helm, Christophe Bavière replaces Antoine Valdes at AGF and Calpers names Richard J Hayes as new manager for private equity investments…

• Graham Hutton has left Morgan Grenfell Private Equity as Deutsche Bank dropped plans to spin off the firm.  Sir Robert Smith, deputy chairman of Deutsche Asset Management, has been appointed to take over as chief executive.
  
  
• Christophe Bavière has been named as the replacement for Antoine Valdes as chief executive of the private equity division of French insurance firm AGF.
  
  
• Calpers, the US's biggest pension fund, has appointed Richard J Hayes as senior investment manager for the fund's substantial private equity investments. He will be responsible for around $20bn in funds that Calpers has allocated to private equity.
  
  
• Noble Fund Managers, the fund management arm of the Edinburgh-based Noble Group, has added Charles McMicking to its private equity team. McMicking joins the team after eight years with London firm Electra partners.
  
  
• Duke Street Capital has added Rémy Sautter and Michel Jaouen to its advisory board to strengthen sectoral and regional expertise. Sautter's background is in the media sector - he is currently president and CEO of RTL Radio. Jaouen has worked in the chemicals industry for over 40 years.
  
  
• Benelux-based law firm Loyens & Loeff has taken on Mic van Bremen, Herman Kaemingk and Pieter van Druten from Caron & Stevens and Baker & McKenzie to boost its private equity team.
  
  
• US venture firm Matrix Partners has appointed technology specialist Shirish Sathaye as a new general partner. Sathaye leaves Alteon websystems where he was chief technology officer.
  
  
• Nic Humphries has joined HgCapital as a director. Humphries joins the Information & Communications Technology (ICT) investment team in London. Karsten Hartmann also joins the firm from McKinsey & Company as an associate director of the Frankfurt ICT team. 
  
  
• Leman Capital has expanded its team prior to the launch of a E400m pan-European fund. The four new team members are Olivier Chantre from Bank UBS, Roderick B. Egli, former M&A vice president at Bankers Trust International and Jeremy Howarth and Ralph-Oliver Hefti, associates from PricewaterhouseCoopers and Boston Consulting Group respectively.
  
  
• BancBoston Capital, the private equity unit of FleetBoston Financial has hired Christian Heidl as an investment officer to work with the later-stage investment team. He will be responsible for leveraged buy-outs, focusing particularly on German-speaking countries.
  
  
• Ziad Sarkis and Frédéric Stévenin are to join PAI - the European private equity firm, as partners. Sarkis co-founded the Mitchell Madison Group and was also a partner in AT Kearney.  Stévenin joins from Deutsche Bank.
  
  
• David Sola will take on the role of interim chief executive at the private equity arm of Swiss investment bank, UBS. Former chief executive Pierre de Weck, left the bank when plans for the UBS capital spin-off collapsed. Sola will remain in the position until a replacement is hired.
  
  
• Alistair Mills joins NatWest Development Capital from Bridgepoint Capital as investment director. Mills' appointment is the latest in a chain of over 20 executives hired by the company over the past year.
  
  
• John Collis has left the struggling Internet Capital Group to join b-business partners, a venture capital firm that focuses on business-to-business technology. Collis will be managing director of b-business partners with responsibility for the European internet security sector.
  
  
• ABN Amro Capital has hired Jonathan Bourn as the director of its leveraged buy-out team. Bourn makes the move from the debt side of buy-outs at Credit Suisse First Boston where he was a lead arranger of senior and mezzanine debt facilities. In his new role, he will focus on the identification, origination and execution of transactions.