Rob Leach stands down at BlackRock in reshuffle

BlackRock's Rob Leach, one of the most senior figures on the buyside in London, has left his role as head of European capital markets after three years, amid a reshuffling at the $4.77tn asset manager.

Mr Leach is "considering other opportunities, both inside and outside of the firm", according to an internal memo seen by the Financial Times. Mr Leach was not available for comment. BlackRock declined to comment.

Mr Leach's move comes at a time when European IPO activity has picked up and BlackRock - the world's largest institutional investor - is a key participant in the City's equity markets.

Last summer Mr Leach warned about the quality of European IPOs, after the market for companies going public was soured by a string of high-profile failures. He sent an email to bankers - the content of which was obtained by the Financial Times - saying that the flotation process needed to be improved.

Mr Leach's move comes amid a senior reshuffling in BlackRock's global capital markets team.

In March Steve Sterling, head of BlackRock's trading and liquid strategies global capital markets group, was appointed chairman of BlackRock Capital Investment Corporation. Friday's internal memo said that Matt Savino and Scott Greenberg would take over as co-heads of the business, which will be structured along both asset class and regional lines.

Mr Savino will lead the Americas global capital markets business and run global debt capital markets activities. Mr Greenberg will relocate to the London office from Hong Kong to lead the international global capital markets business - encompassing Europe and Hong Kong - as well as global equity capital markets activities.

Both Mr Savino and Mr Greenberg will report to Richie Prager, managing director, head of trading and liquidity strategies group.

Leach, a managing director, joined BlackRock in 2012 from hedge fund SAC Global Investors to lead a new capital markets team. Before that he worked in equity capital markets at UBS.

Recently BlackRock's European capital markets team has been devoting more attention to sourcing late-stage pre-IPO financing deals, mirroring a trend in the US where tech companies have achieved blockbuster private valuations.

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