Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BoAML) said on Wednesday it had hired UBS corporate broker Peter Luck, helping to bolster a team depleted by a string of senior departures.

Luck, who will be a managing director in the corporate broking team, will take up his role in June, a spokeswoman for BoAML said. He had been a managing director in corporate broking at UBS for the past three years.

A mainly British phenomenon, corporate brokers offer advice to clients for minimal fees, usually in the hope of winning their bank more lucrative business, such as M&A or equity fundraising, further down the line.

They also act as a go-between for their clients and investors.

Last month BoAML lost its London-based head of corporate broking Mark Astaire to Barclays Capital , while Simon Fraser, previously co-head of the unit, retired at the end of last year.

Also in February, Andrew Osborne, a managing director in BoAML's corporate broking team who has now left the bank, was fined 350,000 pounds ($550,700) by Britain's financial regulator in a high profile market abuse case.

BoAML, which has 28 FTSE 100 corporate broking clients, hired four new managing directors in the business last year.

Luck will report to Simon Mackenzie-Smith, chairman of the bank's UK & Ireland Corporate & Investment Banking business.

The changes come as a fight for corporate broking clients hots up in Britain, as banks eye the clients of Hoare Govett after Royal Bank of Scotland sold the business to Jefferies .

($1 = 0.6355 British pounds)

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by David Holmes)

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