Private Equity Poaches Banks' Top Guns

This year, leveraged buyouts in the financial sector across the world have topped $70 billion, according to Dealogic.

"The global growth in demand for financial products and services combined with our ability to attract accomplished professionals makes this an opportune time to start this new investment practice," said David Rubenstein, co-founder and managing director of Carlyle, in a press release last week.

While big-name players in the financial industry can give private-equity firms hands-on experience of working for a company in the sector, the executives may covet a shot at running a portfolio company.

"This is something you're seeing more and more of," says Carter Burgess, a managing director at executive search and corporate governance recruiting firm RSR Partners in Greenwich, Conn.

The executives can "sit on the board of portfolio companies, act as adviser, get the lay of the land, and then when they go public -- maybe head them up," Burgess says. "Private-equity firms are appealing to executives like Molina by saying, 'Come on over here and live the dream with us.'"

BofA had said when Molina stepped down that he was interested in pursuing other business opportunities, which included possibly running his own company or a position once again in the capital markets business.