Reuters adds to its deals reporting team

Greg Roumeliotis, who oversees mergers and acquisitions coverage at Reuters, sent out the following announcement on Friday:

I’m pleased to announce new additions to the U.S. deals team:

Joshua Franklin is our new private equity and IPO reporter. He joins us from the Reuters bureau in Zurich, where he covered Swiss investment banks as well as Switzerland’s central bank, and broke major news during his three-year stint there. His scoops included the U.S. Department of Justice having asked Credit Suisse to pay more than $5 billion to settle a probe over its sale of toxic mortgage securities, UBS restructuring its flagship wealth management business, and revelations on exchanges between Credit Suisse’s CEO and his global markets head over $1 billion in trading losses. Josh’s experience of getting inside some of the world’s most secretive financial institutions will serve him well as he reports on what is still one of Wall Street’s most opaque industries. He previously worked for Reuters in London, where he joined as a trainee and gained experience working on several desks. Josh studied French and German at the University of Bristol, and got a masters degree in political journalism at City University in London. He is a long-suffering Arsenal soccer fan and a big U.S. politics junkie (he joins us at a very interesting time!).

Josh is taking over from Gui Qing Koh, who has moved to a new beat covering Chinese money in the United States as well as investigative projects focused on Wall Street. Nominated, along with Reuters colleagues, for a Pulitzer Prize in national reporting earlier this year, Gui Qing will harness her knowledge of private equity and financial markets to tell accessible, in-depth stories. She will work in collaboration with other reporters on the finance team to bring those stories to life. A native of Singapore, Gui Qing has reported from Beijing, where she covered the Chinese economy as well as Singapore and Sydney, where she reported on monetary policy and the foreign exchange market. Her investigative work includes uncovering the existence of a Chinese government-controlled radio network that broadcasts pro-Beijing programming in more than a dozen American cities. Working with colleagues last year, she also revealed that a buyout fund aiming to buy a U.S. chipmaker was in fact funded by cash from China’s central government. The deal was eventually vetoed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Harry Brumpton is our new M&A reporter focusing on the consumer, retail and industrial sectors. He joins us from Mergermarket in New York, where he regularly broke news on deals in the industrial and consumer sectors for the last two years. His scoops this year included deal talks between packaging companies Amcor and Bemis falling through, Genuine Parts Company’s acquisition of Alliance Automotive Group, and meal kit company Home Chef going up for sale. An Australian national, Harry began his journalism career as a trainee at The Courier-Mail in Brisbane. He went on to work for The South-East Advertiser and The Townsville Bulletin, before coming to New York in 2015. Harry has a bachelor’s degree in arts and a graduate degree in writing, editing and publishing from the University of Queensland. A big foodie, Harry enjoys discovering new dining spots in New York and also catching up on good novels. He also volunteers as an after-school tutor to children of immigrant families.

Josh and Harry report to me and Gui Qing reports to Carmel Crimmins. They are all keen to work with you on stories across the file, so please join me in congratulating them on their new roles.

Best, Greg