US investment bank Jefferies CFO Peg Broadbent dies after contracting coronavirus

Broadbent is the first high-profile Wall Street executive known to have succumbed to the virus

Jefferies Financial Group on Sunday said its chief financial officer, Peg Broadbent, died from coronavirus complications. He was 56. AP Photo

US-based investment bank Jefferies said its chief financial officer Peg Broadbent died after contracting the coronavirus. The 56-year-old executive is the first senior Wall Street figure known to have succumbed to the deadly pandemic, which is spreading fast throughout the United States and Europe.

The bank, which has operations across the world including the Middle East, has named Teri Gendron, chief financial officer of Jefferies Financial Group, as his interim successor.

“We are heartbroken and grieve that our friend and colleague, Peg Broadbent, has passed away from coronavirus complications,” said Jefferies chief executive Rich Handler and president Brian Friedman in a joint statement. “For over a dozen years Peg has been our CFO and partner and helped us build Jefferies from less than half its current size and navigate through hard times and good times.”

The loss of the finance veteran, they said, was “incredibly personal for us as he was a member of our own extended family”. The news of his passing comes just days after the bank reported a record quarterly revenue of $1.17 billion (Dh4.3bn).

Before joining the Wall Street investment bank in 2007, Broadbent worked at Morgan Stanley for 16 years, rising to become managing director and head of institutional controllers at the biggest US lender, managing more than 1,000 people.

Broadbent was in good health prior to contracting coronavirus, and his passing is "a terrible tragedy", the Financial Times cited Colm Kelleher, who stepped down as Morgan Stanley's president last year, as saying. "He was very smart and will be much missed."

Broadbent, who was a University of Exeter graduate and a chartered accountant, is survived by his wife Hayley, their young children, Sebastian and Grace, as well as his older children, Anna, Sophie and Charlie.

“Part of what made Peg the great partner he was to all of us was his core humanity,” Mr Handler and Mr Friedman said.

The novel coronavirus, which has the spread from the Chinese city of Wuhan, has so far infected more than 724,000 people as fatalities have topped 34,000 globally. More than 152,000 people have recovered, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking global coronavirus data.

Despite border controls and a lockdown in Europe and the US, the rate of infection and number of fatalities is growing, affecting people from every walk of life including sports personalities, actors, entertainers and lawmakers. The virus is spreading rapidly in the US, with New York being the hotspot, where 776 people have already died.