Reuters hires WSJ’s Templin as Americas finance editor

Paritosh Bansal, managing editor for news in the Americas at Reuters, sent out the following announcement on Wednesday:

I am delighted to report that Neal Templin is joining us as Finance Editor in the Americas. Neal will start on Sept. 4 and report to me.

Neal spent 29 years at The Wall Street Journal in a variety of reporting and editing roles. He started as an automotive reporter in Detroit, and then covered commercial real estate from Dallas. He was later Dallas bureau chief, before moving to the Journal’s New York office. His posts there include Personal Finance Editor, editor on Page One, Deputy Standards Editor, Greater New York Section Chief. A California native, Neal lives in Maplewood, N.J., with his family.

I want to thank Lauren LaCapra for stepping up to lead the team during a very busy period, which included a CEO change at Goldman Sachs and two earnings seasons. Lauren will continue as deputy finance editor, reporting to Neal.

We are also reorganizing the M&A team, which will take on a broader mandate as our Corporate Finance group, using their sources with bankers, lawyers, investors and others to break news across the companies and finance file. Greg Roumeliotis will continue to lead the team, reporting to me and working closely with the GIEs.

As part of this change, various team members will take on expanded roles:

Liana Baker will be M&A team leader and spearhead our deals coverage across all industries. One of our most prolific and seasoned scoopsters, Liana has been on the team for four years and covered technology, media and telecommunications deals out of New York and San Francisco. Some of her biggest scoops include Tesla/SolarCity and Sprint/T-Mobile. Before joining the deals team in 2014, Liana covered media and cable companies for Reuters. A Canadian national, Liana is an avid skier and a book club aficionado.

Svea Herbst will expand her hedge funds beat to take on shareholder activism as well. Boston-based Svea is well-versed in breaking high-profile news, having covered the multi-year-long U.S. investigation into insider trading, starting with Raj Rajaratnam’s arrest in 2009 and ending with the U.S. government shutting down Steven A. Cohen’s hedge fund SAC Capital. She joined Reuters in Frankfurt in 1994 to cover the chemical industry and Germany’s central bank before moving to New York in 1997, just in time for the dot.com boom and bust. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where she enjoys baking, gardening, and accumulating Amtrak miles on her commutes to the office in Boston and New York.

Jessica DiNapoli will broaden her debt restructuring beat to include corporate finance and corporate governance, giving her a wide platform to break news on how corporate America funds and runs itself. In the past three years, Jessica has broken news on high-profile bankruptcies including nuclear power plant engineering company Westinghouse, retailer Sports Authority and gun maker Remington Outdoor Brands. She also chronicled the ‘retail apocalypse’ and demise of several energy companies following the 2014 oil price slump. Originally from Newburgh, New York, Jessica’s hobbies include volunteering to help animals and attending dance exercise classes.

Please join me in welcoming Neal to Reuters and congratulating the members of the corporate finance team on their new roles.