Société Générale has taken an important step in its bid to seriously compete for mergers and acquisitions mandates outside of France with the hire of two new country-specific heads of M&A.

Jan Caspar Hoffmann joins as a managing director and head of German M&A from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, according to a statement. Hoffman, who will be based in Frankfurt, spent 11 years with the US bank, most recently as head of the German business of Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity.