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Baird taps Credit Suisse exec to co-lead GP-led business

The mid-market investment bank earlier hired Alex Mejia from Goldman Sachs to co-lead its GP-led focused advisory business.

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Baird, the mid-market investment bank, has hired another top executive to join its secondaries advisory team as it expands its GP-led-focused operations.

Jeremy Duksin will join the Milwaukee-headquartered bank early next year after completing a period of gardening leave, a spokesperson for Baird told Secondaries Investor. Duksin will co-head the bank’s advisory group that focuses on GP-led processes alongside Alex Mejia, who is set to join Baird in mid-December.

Duksin, a managing director, is a senior member of Credit Suisse’s private fund group who has focused on secondary advisory, fund placement, direct & co-investments and fund M&A, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Secondaries Investor reported in September that Mejia was to join Baird from Goldman Sachs, less than 18 months after he joined the bank to head its secondaries advisory unit.

Baird formed a capital advisory team whose mandate included secondaries, Secondaries Investor reported in June last year. Gavin Kolt, a 10-year veteran of Moelis & Company, joined as head of equity capital advisory alongside head of debt capital advisory Anne-Marie Peterson.

The WSJ first reported that Duksin was set to join Baird.

David Klein, a 20-year veteran of Credit Suisse and co-head of its private fund group, will cover Duksin’s role on an interim basis, according to a source familiar with the matter. Klein and fellow PFG co-head Michael Murphy will continue to oversee the bank’s primaries and secondaries business, it is understood.

There has been movement in both the GP-led and LP-focused advisory world in recent months. In October, Secondaries Investor reported that Eaton Partners had hired Kevin Nowaskey from Moelis & Co to join its GP advisory, secondaries and directs team, while in September, affiliate title Buyouts reported that William Blair, which has been building out a private capital advisory business since hiring Mike Custar from M2O earlier this year, hired Jake Stuiver as a director in New York to focus on LP secondaries sales.

A spokesperson for Credit Suisse declined to comment.