Credit Suisse has announced an all-new real estate investment trusts (REITs) equities research team as it looks to expand its equities business in Australia in 2010.

Stephen Rich will lead the team after moving from UBS where he covered domestic large caps, having earlier worked in Deutsche Bank’s real estate equities research team.

Richard Close joined Credit Suisse this month as a senior salesman on the equities research desk from Citigroup Global Markets and Jarrod Martin will jointly lead Australian bank research after having led RBS's banking research team since 2006.

"These appointments reflect our strategy of building a top-ranked client franchise in Australia, in line with our position as a global leader in equities," said Credit Suisse's head of equities for Australia, Jonathan Gurnsey.

The other new members of the REITs equities research team are Rowena Causely from Macquarie Group, John Lee from Stockland Group and Vanessa Webb from law firm Jeffreys & Associates.

This will be a slightly larger team than the previous one, which disbanded after three members left to join Citigroup at the end of last year, the company said.

Highly ranked analyst Andrew Rosivach, who now leads the US REITs research product, will continue to be involved in Australian research, supporting the new team.