The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday edition that Canaccord Genuity Group has hired Julian Erleigh, a close friend of Britain's Prince Harry, to work as a vice-president in its United Kingdom offices. The Post's Barbara Shecter writes that Viscount Erleigh, 29, whose father is the Marquess of Reading, joined Canaccord as vice-president of U.K. equity sales in February. The hiring of the blueblood financier, whose past employers include Cantor Fitzgerald and HSBC Private Bank, comes as smaller dealers struggle amid choppy equity markets, and mounting regulatory and compliance costs. In February, Canaccord cut 125 staff in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and shuttered its office in Barbados. Viscount Erleigh has worked in equity sales, capital markets, and corporate finance, focusing on the mid-market. He has been linked in press reports with members of the royal family beyond his friend Prince Harry -- including Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Media in the United Kingdom have included Viscount Erleigh, who is also known as Julian Rufus Isaacs, in roundups of Prince Harry's inner circle, some times dubbed the BBB crew for Blue Bloods and Blondes.