Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the No. 2 underwriter of Spanish stock sales this year, has hired two bankers to sell shares of the nation’s companies amid optimism on the economic rebound.

Goldman Sachs recruited Morgan Stanley’s Rodrigo Albero and Joaquin Gutierrez to bolster the bank’s Spanish equity sales team, said Sebastian Howell, a spokesman for the company in London. Albero joined Goldman Sachs as an associate and Gutierrez will start next week as a vice president. Both will be based in London.

Since emerging from a six-year slump, Spain has become one of the fastest-growing economies in the European Union with seven consecutive quarters of growth. Companies are taking advantage of the rebound to hold initial public offerings that have already raised the most this year since 2007.

Goldman helped manage airport operator Aena SA’s $4.9 billion IPO, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Cellnex Telecom SAU and Patentes Talgo SA are set to start trading Thursday in Madrid.

After two years of decline, Spanish equity trading jumped 26 percent in 2014 to 884 billion euros ($1 trillion) and is up 30 percent in the first four months of 2015 compared with a year earlier, according to Bolsas y Mercados Espanoles SA, the Spanish stock-market operator.

A spokesman for Morgan Stanley in London declined to comment on the staff departures.