The European firm has appointed a new CEO for its UK arm as the predecessor steps down.

There has been a change at the top of Edmond de Rothschild Group’s UK activities, with a new chief executive, Eric Coutts, taking the helm from Richard Briance, who has decided to step down after almost five years in the post.

Coutts, who joined the firm last year, will report to Emmanuel Fievet, head of Edmond de Rothschild International Private Banking, who also takes up a new role as chairman of Edmond de Rothschild (UK), it said in a statement. Coutts takes up the role on 1 April, which he holds in addition to his existing post of head of corporate finance in the firm’s London team.

Edmond de Rothschild – the continental European side of the Rothschild dynasty - has been present in London since 1983, and inaugurated its current office in Carlton Gardens in 2013, where the team now numbers over 120. Services include private merchant banking, fixed income brokerage, corporate finance, infrastructure and structured finance, and hedge funds.

Before joining the business, Coutts was previously with Citigroup in Paris, where he was in charge of mergers and acquisitions for the firm in France, and subsequently head of banking. He was country officer for the bank’s French operations from 2011. Previously he worked for Goldman Sachs, where he held various positions in investment banking, in London and Paris, between 1993 and 2007. He began his career in 1985 in London as a legal M&A advisor at Slaughter and May. He holds dual British-French citizenship.

In Fievet’s case, he has been CEO of Edmond de Rothschild (Suisse) and head of Edmond de Rothschild’s international private banking since 2014. Based in Geneva, he oversees all of the group’s activities in Switzerland. He was previously co-CEO of the Global Private Bank and head of UK and Europe at Barclays Wealth and Investment Management in London.

The group was founded in 1953 by Baron Edmond de Rothschild and has been presided over since 1997 by Baron Benjamin de Rothschild. At 31 December 2013, the group had €133.6 billion ($144.7 billion) of assets under management and nearly 2,800 employees spread across 31 offices, branches and subsidiaries.