Eyeing a fresh wave of public offerings, Lazard Ltd has hired former Goldman Sachs Group Inc equity-markets banker Tom Tuft, the Wall Street Journal said on Tuesday.

Tuft, who will join Lazard in November, was involved with several high-profile initial public offerings in 1990s, including that of Estee Lauder , according to the paper.

Our view is that generally over the next five to six years, there will be a re-equalization of the American capital structure, Tuft told the paper. So if you are in our role of giving advice, giving the best advice is very important.

Lazard, which does not handle actual underwriting, will name Tuft as the chairman of its global capital markets advisory group, the paper said.

The paper said Tuft's Goldman exit was announced internally last week.

Lazard and Goldman could not be immediately reached for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

(Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Editing by Valerie Lee)

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