Jefferies names Jason Griffith co-head of equity products

Mr. Griffith will partner with Ross L. Stevens, PhD, Co-Head of Equity Products, who joined Jefferies in November 2005. They will be jointly responsible for the firm's expansion in electronic trading services and equity financial products, including derivatives.

"Having focused over the past few years on driving the growth of investment banking and asset management, we are now devoting greater attention to expanding Jefferies' sales and trading effort, as demonstrated by a series of strategic hires in recent months," commented Richard B. Handler, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Jefferies. "Jason Griffith has outstanding experience and relationships on Wall Street and represents another key hire for Jefferies. These senior hires and their related initiatives are designed to strengthen and expand the Firm's leading trading businesses."

"I am very excited to join Jefferies' thriving platform as the firm enhances its focus on sales and trading," said Mr. Griffith. "The significant order flow and broad relationships of Jefferies' trading business should allow us to develop an increasing array of market-leading services for our clients."

"With Jason's broad-based background in derivatives, our experience is extremely complementary," added Mr. Stevens. "Having worked together with Jason for a number of years, I look forward to partnering with him as we team with the rest of Jefferies' management and employee-partners to enhance the Firm's ability to serve our equity clients."

Prior to joining Jefferies, Mr. Griffith worked most recently at Societe Generale as the Head of U.S. Structured Product Sales following Societe Generale's acquisition of Bank of America's Structured Investments Business, which Mr. Griffith headed globally. He previously worked at Banc of America Securities LLC from 1998 through 2005, where he was one of the founding members of that firm's equity derivatives platform. His most recent responsibilities included: member of the Equity Operating Committee; Global Head of the Hedge Fund Investors Group (offering hedge fund investors both structured hedge fund linked products and capital introduction to the bank's prime brokerage hedge funds); and Head of Equity Linked Solutions, which engineered and structured equity linked notes and distributed them through institutional, retail and private banking distribution channels. Mr. Griffith has also held positions in equity derivatives at Bear Stearns and Bankers Trust, and in investment banking at Kidder, Peabody. He received a B.A. in economics from Columbia University and will be based in Jefferies' New York headquarters office.