Jefferies plans to hire more senior dealmakers after bolstering managing director numbers by 20% this year as larger rivals have made deep cuts to their teams.

The US investment bank now has 360 managing directors within its investment bank, it said in its third-quarter earnings statement on 27 September. This is up 20%, compared with the 299 senior bankers it started the year with, and up by 70% since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 as the independent bank has swooped on talent from rivals including Credit Suisse and JPMorgan in recent months.