LONDON – The Italian bank Mediobanca said on Friday that it had hired Francesco Canzonieri, a former Barclays and Goldman Sachs banker, to bolster its investment banking roster in London.
Mr. Canzonieri will serve as head of Mediobanca’s financial institutions teams for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Mr. Canzonieri most recently served as the head of the Barclays financial institutions group, or FIG, for Italy, Greece, Turkey and parts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
“The hiring of a high quality and experienced professional like Francesco is a further step in the strengthening of the international activities of Mediobanca and the growth of our FIG business,” Alberto Nagel, the Mediobanca chief executive, said in a statement.
Mediobanca, which has traditionally had huge influence over Italian companies because of the ownership stakes it held, has been looking to diversify its business and expand its presence abroad.
In the past year, the bank, under Mr. Nagel’s leadership, has shed large stakes in some of Italy’s biggest companies, including Telecom Italia and Assicurazioni Generali. Mediobanca had total assets of 59.7 billion euros, or about $81.3 billion, at of the end of its prior fiscal year in June 2013. The bank posted a net profit of €395 million through the first nine months of this fiscal year.
Last year, Mediobanca also hired Stefano Marsaglia, another senior banker at Barclays, as co-head of its corporate and investment banking business. He serves as co-head of the division with Mr. Nagel.
Prior to joining Barclays, Mr. Canzonieri worked for Goldman Sachs as part of its Italian investment banking team and for NextGen Financial Solutions.
Mr. Canzonieri is the latest senior banker to leave Barclays as the British lender shrinks its investment bank and reshapes its business as part of a broad restructuring to improve its profitability and reduce its reliance on riskier businesses.
Barclays plans to eliminate 14,000 positions this year and 19,000 in total over the next three years as part of the overhaul. As part of those reductions, the investment bank, which employed 26,000 at the end of 2013, is to cut 7,000 jobs by 2016.
Hugh E. McGee III, who led the bank in the Americas, announced his departure in April, and several other senior bankers have made plans to follow him out the door in recent weeks.