By Carl O'Donnell
Sept 5 (Reuters) - Credit Suisse Group AG CSGN.S has brought on three new senior investment bankers as it continues to build out its healthcare investment banking division, according to an internal memo reviewed by Reuters.
The three managing directors, Andrew Singer, Lorenzo Paoletti and Liav Abraham, will join Credit Suisse this fall, the memo said.
The hires bulk up Credit Suisse's life sciences banking team at a time when mergers and acquisition activity in the sector is at a record high for the year to date, according to Refinitiv data.
So far this year, there has been nearly $300 million in life sciences mergers and acquisition activity, including Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) Co's BMY.N $90 billion acquisition of Celgene Corp CELG.O , Abbvie Inc's ABBV.N $63 billion deal for Allergan (NYSE:AGN) Plc AGN.N , and Mylan Nv's MYL.O merger with Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) Inc's PFE.N established drugs business.
Singer, who will be based in San Francisco, is joining Credit Suisse as a managing director. He was previously at Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) & Co WFC.N . He has 20 years of investment banking experience including at Royal Bank of Canada ( RBC ) RY.TO and Robertson Stephens. He also worked at Blackstone (NYSE:BX) Group Inc BX.N and Epizyme Inc EPZM.O , a biotechnology company where he was chief financial officer.
Paoletti is coming to Credit Suisse from RBC to work as a managing director focused on the biopharmaceutical sector. He will be based in New York. Prior to RBC, he worked in Barclays Plc's BARC.L healthcare investment banking group.
Abraham, who will also be a managing director based in New York, was previously at Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) C.N , where she was an equity research analyst covering specialty pharmaceuticals and co-head of the U.S. healthcare equity research team.
So far this year, Credit Suisse has worked on transactions for Bayer AG BAYGn.DE and Merck & Co Inc MRK.N as well as capital raises for companies including Intercept Pharmaceuticals ICPT.O , Ascendis Pharma A/S A71.F and Cortexyme Inc CRTX.O .