NEW YORK, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Jeff Stute, a veteran

investment banker with a career spanning three decades at

Perella Weinberg Partners ( PWP ) and JPMorgan Chase ( JPM ), 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 ( JPM ) and Goldman Sachs ( GS ).

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 ( JPM ) 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 ( CTLT )

$16.5 billion sale to the parent company of Novo Nordisk

, which is the maker of the popular obesity drug

Wegovy.