German bank Berenberg has taken another key step in its US investment banking growth plan by hiring James Ramp, a banker with more than two decades of experience, to run its equity capital markets business in the country.

Berenberg, which has had a US presence since launching in Boston five years ago with a research-based European equity service for US institutional investors - and has since expanded into New York, Chicago and San Francisco - has identified further US growth as a priority for 2016.