NEW YORK, July 16—Steve Lipin, finance editor of The Wall Street Journal whose scoops on the mergers and acquisition beat included the deals between Chase Manhattan and Chemical Bank and Daimler Benz and Chrysler, is joining Brunswick Group as senior partner for financial public relations and investor relations in its New York office.
 
For Brunswick, which is headquartered in London, this is the third major hire in the past six months. The firm recently brought on board Jamie Rubin, former assistant U.S. secretary of state for public affairs (and husband of CNN journalist Christiane Amnanpour) and Mike Buckley, former head of the litigation communications practice of Hill & Knowlton.
 
Lipin is expected to work on the M&A front. Brunswick is consistently ranked among the top two M&A firms in the U.K. and is seeking to become a player on this side of the Atlantic. According to Brunswick partner Tim Payne, “Steve already enjoys excellent relationships with lawyers and bankers and others in the deal-making arena, and he’s obviously well qualified to work with the media in M&A situations. I think he’ll make a brilliant M&A advisor.”

Lipin joined the New York bureau of the Journal as a reporter in September 1991, covering commercial banking and covering derivatives. In January 1995, he began covering mergers and acquisitions, and in February 1996, he became a senior special writer. He was named finance editor in October 2000.

In addition to scoops on the Chase and DaimlerChrysler mergers, Lipin’s major stories included an analysis of Lockheed Martin’s attempts to acquire the assets of Loral and breaking the news of WorldCom’s unsolicited 1997 bid for MCI. A Dow Jones newswire story said that Lipin’s departure “is tantamount to Maureen Dowd leaving The New York Times.”

“I’m young enough, at 38, to try something new,” Lipin told reporters. “It’s now or never.”