Not sure what the correct terminology is here for this, whether it be a flight, a gaggle, a ruck, a swarm, a covey, a shoal or a legion, but they are fleeing and they are fleeing fast. In the latest case in point, one prominent J.P. Morgan rainmaker, who once basked in the glow of the M&A boom, having recently found his VIP room more like a waiting room, fled to the arms of this private-equity firm – and former client.

As the head of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.'s banking unit that covers private-equity firms, John Coyle was at the red-hot center of the buyout boom. Now, in the midst of the bust, he has jumped ship to join a former client, private-equity firm Permira.

The 42-year-old banker is not alone. He is joining top bankers from UBS AG, Bear Stearns Cos. and Citigroup Inc. that are taking jobs at private-equity firms. After the several golden years of negotiating multibillion-dollar deals, the bankers face the unpleasant situation of toiling at big investment banks during a downturn.

Mr. Coyle will be co-head of North American business at European firm Permira, joining veteran deal maker Tom Lister. As head of the J.P. Morgan's financial-sponsor practice, Mr. Coyle played a key role in the buyouts of HCA Inc. and Aramark Corp. He joined the investment bank at Chase Manhattan in 1988 straight out of college, and from 1998 until 2005 was stationed in London, where he handled the Permira relationship for J.P. Morgan. He says his departure has nothing to do with the slowdown.

"I've been at the firm for 20 years and it's a natural time to make a move," he said. If anything, he says, by joining a private-equity client, "I'm jumping from the frying pan into the fire."

Until the credit markets clammed up last summer, buyout shops were a giant profit center for Wall Street. The banks generated hundreds of millions of dollars in fees advising on multibillion-dollar deals to acquire companies. Bigger profits were in the financing, as the banks took in billions underwriting loans and junk bonds to be sold to investors. Last year, J.P. Morgan earned roughly $1.3 billion in fees from private-equity firms, according to data provider Dealogic.

Today, a slew of busted deals have weakened those ties, in some cases leading to litigation. Banks have written down billions of dollars of leveraged loans from private-equity deals, seriously crimping their years of profits.

Meanwhile, private-equity deal making has ground to a virtual halt, leaving the investment-banking units that cover private-equity firms overstaffed. Total investment-banking fees paid by buyout shops globally fell 77% in the first quarter from a year earlier, says Dealogic.

In recent weeks a host of senior bankers have left their firms for private-equity jobs. Olivier Sarkozy, a top financial-institutions banker at UBS, left for Carlyle Group; Louis Friedman, chairman of Bear Stearns's mergers-and-acquisitions business, left to manage a new fund at P. Schoenfeld Asset Management LLP; and Christopher Varelas, a top tech banker at Citigroup, left to join fledgling firm Bigwood Capital LLC.

Permira is one of several prominent European private-equity players, such as CVC Capital Partners Ltd. and BC Partners, which have flowed into the U.S. buyout market. While these firms already have strong Wall Street ties, they face the challenge of getting American corporate boards and chief executives comfortable with them.

Permira, a Latin word meaning "surprisingly different," was founded in 1985 as an affiliate of United Kingdom financial firm Schroders PLC and formally separated from it in 2001. It opened a New York outpost in 2002 and three years later hired Mr. Lister, a former partner at pioneering buyout shop Forstmann Little & Co. who now co-heads Permira. The firm is now deploying an €11 billion ($17.3 billion) global fund, raised in 2006.

Though relatively new to the U.S. market, Permira was in the middle of the recent trend of "club deals," or partnering with other private-equity firms to make mega-acquisitions. In 2004, it joined with three others to buy Washington D.C.-based Intelsat Ltd. for $550 million, and sold it in February to a pair of buyout shops for about $5 billion. In December 2006, it teamed up to buy Freescale Semiconductor Inc. for $17.6 billion.

"There's no doubt that Europe is central to our history," said Charles Sherwood, a Permira partner based in London. "But the U.S. is crucial to our future, and John is vital to that strategy."

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