Cogent hires founder of NJ Capital Advisors

Cogent Partners has hired NJ Capital Advisors founder Niklas Johansson as a senior advisor in the firm’s London office.

The appointment comes after a series of departures or moves within the bank's upper echelons late last year. One of the firm’s co-founders, Scott Myers, stepped back from day-to-day activities, reducing his role to that of a senior advisor. The co-heads of the firm’s research department, Katita Palamar and Bill Farrell, also announced late last year they were leaving to launch an alternative assets firm.

Johansson founded Sweden-based NJ Capital, which focuses on advising institutional clients in alternative asset management in 2009.

He is also a member of the European Venture Capital Association’s Private Equity Risk Management Guidelines Working Group. He was previously the group chief executive of Nordic investment bank Carnegie, head of external management at Skandia Life Insurance and partner and co-head Equity Capital Markets Crédit Agricole Indosuez Cheuvreaux Nordic.

The hire comes as Cogent works to expand its “presence and acitivities in the Nordics,” Cogent managing partner Brenlen Jinkens said in a statement.

The firm has also looked to its existing ranks to fill positions, having promoted a director and vice president in London and a director in Dallas earlier this month.

Cogent won some large mandates in 2011, assisting public institutions in selling off portions of their private equity portfolios. Cogent worked with New Jersey’s and North Carolina’s state pension systems in sales of their private equity holdings.

The firm was formed in 2002 by several executives from Crossroads Group, a Dallas-based private equity firm that was acquired by Lehman Brothers and now is part of Neuberger Berman. The firm was founded by Colin McGrady, Stephen Sloan and Myers, and associates Ian Charles, who is now a partner with Landmark Partners, and Brian Mooney.