The head of US healthcare banking at UBS has left with about 30 colleagues to join Jefferies as head of its healthcare business eight years after reportedly branding the mid-sized US investment bank a “low quality firm” with "no track record" in the industry.

Banking and headhunting sources today said Benjamin Lorello, previously head of US healthcare investment banking at UBS, has left the firm along with as many as 30 colleagues to join Jefferies, which he derided in a letter written to a potential client in 2001 after it awarded a mandate to the US bank instead of UBS.