Jefferies banker Sage Kelly resigns amid divorce drama: source

(Reuters) - Jefferies Group LLC's banker Sage Kelly, whose messy divorce battle became tabloid fodder in October, resigned to spend time with family, according to a person familiar with the matter. The head of Jefferies' healthcare investment banking group had been on a leave of absence following reports describing how his wife Christina had accused him of drug abuse and erratic behavior. The reports drew so much attention that Jefferies' Chief Executive Richard Handler, Chairman Brian Friedman and executives at its healthcare division volunteered to take drug tests in October and tested negative. Last month, Christina Kelly said "a substantial portion" of what appeared in the press was "inaccurate, untrue or hyperbolic". Jefferies' healthcare unit has been among the firm's best performers. Kelly was part of a team that was lured from Swiss bank UBS AG in 2009. Jefferies, a unit of Leucadia National Corp, reported a fourth-quarter loss on Tuesday and CEO Handler said the financial impact of "Kelly-gate" was "immaterial" to the bottom line. Leucadia shares were up 1.8 percent at $21.42 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. (Reporting by Amrutha Gayathri in Bengaluru and Olivia Oran in New York; Editing by Savio D'Souza)