NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jeff Stute, a veteran investment banker with a career spanning three decades at Perella Weinberg Partners ( PWP ) and JPMorgan Chase, is joining Citigroup ( C/PN ) as a vice chair focused on healthcare mergers in North America, according to a memo seen by Reuters. 

The move is expected to bolster Citi's healthcare investment banking franchise and is part of the Wall Street bank's push to win more market share from rivals including Centerview Partners, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. 

Stute, who is based in New York, will join Citi in December and report to Kevin Cox, the bank's interim global head of M&A. In his new role, Stute will also work closely with Torrey Browder, head of healthcare M&A at Citi. 

Stute, who has advised on several large pharmaceutical transactions during his career, joined Perella in 2019 as a partner focused on healthcare deals. Prior to his stint at Perella, Stute spent 25 years at JPMorgan where he was co-head of North America M&A and later served as global head of healthcare investment banking. 

"Our healthcare M&A market share has increased significantly over the last few years, and we expect that Jeff's addition to the healthcare M&A team will strengthen our position and continue to drive growth," Cox said in the memo.

A Citi spokesperson confirmed the contents of the memo. Perella did not respond to a request for comment.

In October, Citi promoted three senior healthcare investment bankers - Sumit Khedekar, Nishant Jadav and Michael Guarino - as part of its broader effort to win more roles on large transactions amid a slowdown in pharma dealmaking. 

Big Pharma players have focused on smaller private targets in 2024, after splurging tens of billions of dollars last year to gobble up expensive biotech targets to boost their drug pipelines with new promising medicines. 

Global healthcare deal volumes have declined 13% to $247.4 billion so far this year, according to data from Dealogic.

Citi has worked on some notable healthcare deals over the past year. In February, Citi advised on Catalent's $16.5 billion sale to the parent company of Novo Nordisk, which is the maker of the popular obesity drug Wegovy.