Rothschild hires Trevor Manuel

ROTHSCHILD Group has hired former South African finance minister Trevor Manuel to help build the investment bank’s business across the African continent. Manuel would be a senior adviser globally and deputy chairman in South Africa starting today, the group said in an e-mail yesterday. At the bank’s Johannesburg office he “will work closely with its South African team, developing the group’s business in Africa”, it said. Manuel, 58, served as finance minister from 1996 to 2009 and helped oversee the country’s longest period of economic growth. In 2009, President Jacob Zuma appointed him head of the National Planning Commission, which was given the assignment of developing a 20-year blueprint for the economy. He quit politics ahead of the election in May. Manuel joins Wiseman Nkuhlu at Rothschild. – Bloomberg