Societe Generale appoints co-heads of global markets in leadership reshuffle
Societe Generale named two new co-heads of its global markets business, as the French lender looks to turn around the performance of its investment bank. Sylvain Cartier and Alexandre Fleury, veterans of the bank, will become co-heads of global markets, the bank said in a statement. They take over from Jean-François Grégoire, who has held the role since February 2019, and will report into SocGen's head of global banking and investor solutions, Slawomir Krupa.
Citi merges electronic and portfolio trading teams in US under flow credit restructure
Citi has combined its electronic and portfolio trading teams in the US as it looks to centralise its risk taking across global spread products (GSP), according to an internal memo seen by The TRADE. Known as GSP Quantitative Trading, the new unit will merge the beta, electronic, automated trading (BEAT) business with portfolio trading, focusing on market making and risk taking in algo trading, ETF create-redeem, fixed income ETF trading and portfolio trades in spread products. GSP Quantitative Trading will be co-headed by Peter Chalif, co-head of global BEAT trading, and Derek Hafer, global head of spread products portfolio trading. Jay Mann, co-head of GSP algo, market making and electronic trading, will lead the new division’s platform sales team working with the trading team. The memo also listed several new appointments as part of the reorganisation within flow credit, portfolio trading and electronic trading. Sam Berberian was named head of corporate cash trading for North America, while Olaf Auerbach was appointed head of North America distressed trading. Elsewhere, Davy Kim has been given an expanded role as head of North America macro trading in addition to his current position as co-head of synthetic structured credit. Abbas Zaidi has also been promoted to lead high-yield trading.
Morgan Stanley IM global trading head appointed head of US outsourced trading business at UBS
Jon Slavin has been appointed head of execution hub for the Americas at UBS after most recently leading equity trading for the buy-side business at Morgan Stanley. Sherri Cohen also joins the US outsourced trading team at UBS from Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) as head of business development for the Americas, who will report locally to Slavin. She previously ran global emerging markets trading and led the infrastructure development of trading systems and trading COO functions at MSIM. Slavin has been tasked with establishing and running the US outsourced trading team, reporting locally to Todd Lopez, head of execution services for the Americas, and globally to Mark Goodman, global head of UBS execution hub, who penned the memo confirming his appointment.
Point72 macro head poaches from Citadel, Goldman, ExodusPoint in hiring spree
Mohammed Grimeh is rapidly expanding his macro team at Point72 Asset Management, tripling the number of portfolio managers to more than 30, with plans to bring on more. Grimeh, who has been on a hiring spree since joining the firm in February 2020, has snapped up nine new portfolio managers so far this year, according to a person familiar with the matter. One of the new hires will work from the firm’s new office in West Palm Beach, Florida, which opened this month and can accommodate at least 20 people. Point72’s Miami office, with room for at least 25 employees, is expected to open later this year, the person said. The firm also expects to hire additional macro portfolio managers in its Florida and Paris offices because candidates said they would prefer to work there. Point72’s newest macro portfolio managers: Jason Kaplan (from NWI Management), Benjamin Stone (Goldman Sachs), Dimitrios Pagonaki (Citadel), and Alex McNeel (KLS Diversified Asset Management) in New York; Reda El Khayati (Aristeia Capital) in Stamford; Darren DesRoches (Goldman Sachs) in West Palm Beach; Derek Arnold (Citadel) and Jacob Westin (ExodusPoint) in London; Omar Tazi (HSBC) in Hong Kong.
Evercore snags team of bankers from Citi and a Goldman Sachs banker
Bradley Wolff, head of West Coast life sciences at Citi, is departing for Evercore, Insider reports. Wolff will be a managing director at Evercore. He is bringing a small team of junior bankers from Citi with him, although the exact number is unclear. One industry source said the group included vice presidents Christopher Thomas and Prakhar Verma and senior associate Kunal Khanna. Hank Yeh, who previously worked as a healthcare investment-banking vice president at Goldman Sachs, has also joined Evercore as a managing director in healthcare investment banking.
Ex-Goldman Sachs MD Henry Howell quits Eisler Capital for crypto hedge fund
Goldman Sachs alumnus Henry Howell is to join European firm Nickel Digital Asset Management as head of business development. Howell spent 16 years at Goldman in Chicago and London, serving at the latter as managing director of prime services and global head of electronic futures. He joins Nickel from Eisler Capital, a London-based macro hedge fund. The move comes as Nickel seeks to beef up its senior team, as digital assets become a major focus for institutional investors. Launched in early 2019, the firm runs four crypto funds and has seen its assets under management increase more than 300% in the last 12 months.
Jane Street, DRW traders made billions as virus hit markets
Proprietary trading shops are notoriously secretive, so when markets went topsy-turvy in 2020, it was almost impossible to know how successful many firms were. It turns out: Very. Financial results from some of the niche’s key players are quietly making the rounds on Wall Street as the companies seek loans to fund their operations. They show extraordinary gains amid last year’s pandemic turmoil. Jane Street Group LLC is among them. The major player in bond exchange-traded funds saw revenue jump 54% to $10.6 billion during the year ended in March 2021, while Ebitda, an earnings measure important in loans, surged 59% to $7.8 billion, according to lenders who’ve been briefed on the New York-based company’s financials. Those are smaller numbers than those at the largest Wall Street banks, but not that far behind. That makes Jane Street one of the most dominant forces in all of trading. At futures, options and cryptocurrencies trader DRW Holdings LLC, revenue and Ebitda surged in 2020 by 50% and 67%, respectively, to about $1.5 billion and $750 million, people familiar with the matter said. This adds to evidence that pandemic-induced volatility was a boon to traders across a broad range of assets, building on public comments from big Wall Street banks. In reports, credit raters have lauded the pandemic performance of certain prop traders such as Jane Street, without specifying figures. Earlier this year, preliminary results from Citadel Securities also trickled out because it was seeking a loan, showing preliminary earnings of $4.1 billion in 2020 on revenue of $6.7 billion, more than doubling its 2019 results. “Prop firms did great in 2020 and likely will in early 2021, just because of all the flow,” said Paul Rowady, director of research for Alphacution Research Conservatory LLC, a market-structure research and advisory company. “Even if in terms of trading strategies, they’re very different firms.”
Banks in staffing crisis as 70% of burned-out juniors flee: ‘This is ridiculous’
Burnout among junior bankers, fed up with mounting workloads, is reaching fever pitch. As much as 70% of analysts and associate teams quit in recent months, even despite efforts to hold onto them. That's according to specialist recruiters and young dealmakers at top firms, who say banks are now facing a full-blown crisis. Aggressive recruitment sprees across the City, accelerated hiring processes and an increase in those quitting the industry for good create a severe skills shortage. “Banks are hemorrhaging junior bankers,” said one specialist headhunter, who works with banks on analyst to VP hires. “People are quitting for better banks, they’re quitting the City or they’re jumping into private equity.” Salary hikes of up to 20%, one-off bonuses that have reached $40,000 and attempts to shake-up working hours have done little to stem the exodus. Specialist recruiters at investment banks say that over a three-year period it is typical for around 40% of analyst classes to depart. Current turnover rates are closer to 70% at some institutions, with longer hours during the pandemic and frenzied recruitment from rivals fueling exits, they said. One associate at a European investment bank said that seven out ten associates covering technology and industrials had departed this year. Meanwhile, another said that four of 12 analysts had been poached by rivals. “It’s a complete failure by HR not to see this coming,” said another associate at a European bank. “There’s no urgency to replace people. One managing director told us that working in a lean team was a great opportunity to learn.” For junior bankers already shouldering extra work, the prospect of replacing a well-trained analyst or associate with an inexperienced hire is not appealing to some.
