JP Morgan poaches three dealmakers from PwC
When Annabelle Mooney early August announced she was leaving PwC for investment banking giant JP Morgan, her employer was understandably disappointed. Three months down the line, Mooney has poached three of her former staff, leaving some of the Big Four firms’ partners fuming.
The 38-year-old Mooney spent eight years in investment banking at among others Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch before she joined PwC in 2017. At the Big Four firm, she was handed the mandate to establish and grow the firm’s newly created Private Equity M&A practice.
The law graduate spent some 24 months at the firm, before returning consulting firm had invested heavily in building the practice.
PwC’s partners were logically disappointed, Mooney told The Australian Financial Review (AFR), but after a number of discussions they accepted the loss given that the fact that it would open up commercial opportunities to work with the dealmaker at JP Morgan. Similarly to M&A lawyers, investment bankers can be important referrers of M&A work to consultants.
However, having then hunted three of her former team members to join her team at JP Morgan, some of PwC’s partners have been left fuming. Alli Peacock previously worked six years for PwC and now is an associate director at JP Morgan, as is Virginie Maikim, who had served PwC for five years. Katie Tabb had just joined the Big Four firm and now is a vice president at the bank.
Clearly, “they didn’t want us to go but if we wanted to go they were going to support it. I am sure they would rather have us here rather than at one of the other Big Four,” said Mooney on the team carve-out.
At JP Morgan, Mooney is head of the bank’s new mid-cap banking unit, which sells loans and cash management accounts. Her team, which further consists of Georgie Farrell and Raymond Goh, currently focuses on mid-sized clients in the consumer goods, healthcare and technology sectors.
