Equirus Capital Pvt. Ltd has appointed Citibank's Ankur Maheshwari as chief executive officer of its wealth management business, the mid-market investment bank's newest division.
The company said in a statement that Maheshwari will be responsible for setting up the business and scaling it up.
At Citibank, Maheshwari was national head of investment sales for the global consumer banking segment. An alumnus of Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta., he earlier had stints with JPMorgan, ICICI Bank and Asian Paints.
Equirus said it is in the process of hiring more senior and mid-level executives for its wealth management division.
The new venture will offer investment services to affluent high net-worth and use technology-enabled platforms for the same.
Equirus Capital managing director Donald D'Souza said the rise in the number of wealthy Indians coupled with a promising economy had prompted the investment bank to start a wealth management business.
The development comes two months after private-sector lender Federal Bank agreed to acquire 26% stake in Equirus Capital for an undisclosed amount.
The deal was aimed at helping Kochi-based Federal Bank offer wealth management services to its high net worth and NRI (non-resident Indian) clients, financial solutions for capital markets, structured finance, capital market products, advisory, and other services.
Founded in 2007, Equirus Capital has handled transactions worth more than $4 billion across mergers and acquisitions, private equity, initial public offerings, institutional placement, and structured financing. It also offers depository services, portfolio management and research, apart from equity broking.
The firm has made a couple of senior-level appointments over the past year. It appointed Saurabh Pandey as its director-healthcare last July . He was the chief operating officer at Matrix Partners-backed orthopaedic hospital chain Mewar Hospitals Pvt. Ltd.
A couple of months before that, Equirus roped in Veda Corporate Advisors Pvt. Ltd’s Abhishek Gupta as a director to head its healthcare vertical.
However, according to his LinkedIn profile, he left the firm in March this year. An email query sent to Equirus did not elicit an immediate response.
