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Evercore hires BofA infrastructure advisory chief(3)

Mark Friedman will join the boutique investment bank as a senior managing director in its transportation advisory business. He is the second high-level investment banker to leave Bank of America’s infrastructure team this week and at least the second high-level hire for Evercore’s nascent infrastructure team in the last three months.

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Bank of America has lost another high-level infrastructure investment banker to a competitor.

Boutique investment bank Evercore Partners has hired Mark Friedman as a senior managing director in its transportation advisory business in New York. Friedman previously headed transportation and infrastructure investment banking at Bank of America for the US and was the global head of its shipping investment banking business. He will also build out a shipping advisory business at Evercore.

Friedman’s departure follows that of Michael Masterson, who left Bank of America this week to join Deutsche Bank’s transportation and infrastructure investment banking business, which he will co-head with Craig Fuehrer. At Bank of America, Masterson was head of airlines and aircraft leasing investment banking for the Americas.

Boutique investment banks like Evercore and non-US investment banks have been busy bulking up their infrastructure industry coverage as bulge-bracket names in need of federal bailout funds have found themselves vulnerable to losing their top talent.

Friedman’s addition also follows the hiring of George Ackert in February to establish and lead Evercore’s transportation and infrastructure business. He previously led the same group at Merrill Lynch.

Morgan Stanley, another big name in infrastructure investment banking, has also lost some of the leaders of its business. In late March, Rob Collins, Morgan Stanley’s head of infrastructure investment banking for the Americas, left the firm to join boutique investment bank Greenhill & Co. At Greenhill, Collins will head the firm’s advisory effort for infrastructure in the Americas.

His departure came on the heels of the departure of Emmett McCann, an executive director on Morgan Stanley’s infrastructure advisory team. McCann has left the firm to join infrastructure investment firm Highstar Capital.