Bear Stearns builds up forex presence in Hong Kong and New York

Bear Stearns has made senior appointments in Hong Kong and New York to increase its capabilities in foreign exchange derivatives and servicing hedge fund clients.

Stanley Zau has joined the bank as a senior managing director and will run the Hong Kong office. He comes from Merrill Lynch where he ran fixed income and forex for Asia, excluding Japan. He reports to Bernd Bröker, head of London forex options, and David Schoenthal, senior managing director for FX and precious metals in New York.

In New York, the dealer has hired Eric Price to run the global hedge fund business. He joins from Barclays Capital in New York, where he was sales manager for the Americas. Schoenthal said the bank wants to make the hedge fund business more global.

Schoenthal said the bank will be hiring six to eight staff in Asia in sales and trading on both the flow trading and derivatives sides of the business. "We chose Hong Kong because it is the one of most dynamic places in Asia," he told RiskNews's sister publication, FX Week. "We did not want the office based in Tokyo or Singapore because we wanted to be closer to China and our non-Japan fixed-income trading team."

Schoenthal added that Bear Stearns wants to hire bullion traders in London and Hong Kong. "There are lots of synergies between bullion and currency trading. They have an impact on each other and so it is important that we strengthen this side of the business."