Exotic structured products group at UBS falls victim to repositioning of investment bank

UBS Investment Bank is closing the exotic structured products business in its fixed income, commodities and currencies (FICC) division. As part of the restructuring, four senior managing directors have left the bank: Todd Morakis, head of commodities in London; Sascha Prinz and David Sacco, co-heads of rates, based in London and New York respectively; and Chris Ryan, head of credit, based in New York. The restructuring is the result of a review by Carsten Kengeter and Jeff Mayer, who joined the bank as joint global co-heads of FICC last year. The bank plans to make further staff cuts in the coming weeks, according to a memo released internally on January 21.

The reorganisation follows an announcement by UBS in October 2008 outlining plans to reposition its investment bank. The ultimate aim is to emphasise the core strengths in the FICC division by focusing on facilitation and flow, while relying less on use of balance sheet and risk.

"As announced in October 2008, the investment bank is in the process of reprioritising its business portfolio around client servicing and facilitation while seeking further efficiency gains," says Jerker Johansson, chief executive of UBS Investment Bank. "Today we announced the completion of the organisational structure and the new leadership for our FICC business."

As part of the structural reorganisation, the remaining product areas will be consolidated into the macro, credit and workout groups. Macro will consist of foreign exchange, money markets and rates, and will be co-headed by Reto Stadelmann who will focus on forex and Yvan Ducrot who will focus on rates. Credit will be managed by Carsten Kengeter on an interim basis, in line with the existing core management team across the credit business.

The workout group will be headed by Jeff Mayer on an interim basis. Mayer will be responsible for managing the exit of real estate and securitisation municipals, commodities, legacy and proprietary positions, and exotic structured products. Emerging markets will comprise a joint venture between the macro and credit groups, and will be headed by Ritesh Dutta, who reports to Kengeter and Mayer.

A global sales team co-headed by Fabian Shey and Roberto Isolani will unite the current product specialist sales groups. Steve Dugdale will head the new quantitative analysis and research group, which will provide tailored solutions and ideas applicable to flow platforms. The group will also manage all FICC quants and research departments.

In July last year, the bank appointed Vito Schiro as head of global structured products for wealth management and intermediaries in addition to his role as head of European equity derivatives sales. Schiro reports to Jason Barron in equities and Fabian Shey in FICC, which was formed by integrating UBS's fixed-income and money markets, currencies and commodities businesses (Structured Products, September 2008).

The equities exotics structured products business is unaffected by the changes in the FICC division.

Yann Garnier has been named head of structured products sales, global equities and derivatives solutions, Asia-Pacific at Societe Generale Corporate and Investment Banking (SG CIB) in Hong Kong, and will replace Nicolas Reille, who is taking a sabbatical. Garnier will report to Nicolas Miara Godet, head of sales, global equities and derivatives solutions, and to Frank Drouet, head of global equities and derivatives solutions, Asia-Pacific. He was previously head of structured products sales, global equities and derivatives solutions for eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and has been replaced by David Ishoo-Mirzayoo, who will report to Marc El Asmar, head of structured products sales, global equities and derivatives solutions for Europe excluding France.

Ishoo-Mirzayoo rejoined SG CIB from UBS in January as head of emerging markets global equity derivatives solutions. At UBS, he was managing director and head of the central and eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa structured solutions group. He worked for SG CIB in 1997 on fixed income, currencies and commodities in Middle East derivatives markets, and was co-head of structured solutions group for Europe, the Middle East and Africa from 2002 to 2007 in the same group before joining UBS.

Meanwhile, Anthony Chamie, executive director and head of structured product sales for the Middle East and Africa, has left the bank.

Japanese investment bank Daiwa SMBC has hired Martial Rouyere as head of retail structured products. London-based Rouyere's appointment follows the hiring of Murielle Maman as global head of product structuring and wrapping in November last year, and is the latest addition to the bank's build-up of its structured investment, financing and hedging products business.

Rouyere, who will report to Clarke Pitts, Daiwa's London-based head of equity derivatives, spent over 10 years in the equity derivatives division at Societe Generale. He was most recently head of delta-one trading and structuring in Paris. Prior to that, he was head of arbitrage for equity derivatives in the US.

James de Castro has been appointed as managing director and head of equity derivatives trading at Standard Chartered Bank, based in Hong Kong. Castro is responsible for the bank's trading activities across equity derivatives and convertible bonds, and reports to Vincent Van Pelt, the bank's global head of equities and commodities.

Prior to joining Standard Chartered, Castro worked at Merrill Lynch as head of global market new initiatives and advisory for the Pacific Rim region, also based in Hong Kong.

Nasdaq OMX Europe has appointed Marc Bailey, Alan Gibbins and Paul Henderson as non-executive directors on the Nasdaq OMX Europe board. Bailey has worked for more than 25 years within the securities and derivatives markets, and is currently managing director of Bache Commodities. He has previously held positions within the global exchange derivatives and European fixed income divisions at JP Morgan and has also worked as director of business development for the London Stock Exchange.

Derivatives and structured product consulting firm Kensington Blake Capital (KBC) has assembled a team of structured products and derivatives personnel to boost its consulting business. The team includes Michael Bilello, Ricardo Diaz, Peter Dwyer, Sherif Elias, Michael Hargadon, Kevin Kane, Bruce Lohman and Brian Zwerner. The firm, which was established in March last year, targets retail and institutional investors in an advisory capacity.

Andrea Negri joined Credit Suisse in London in January as managing director and head of institutional structured equity derivatives for Europe, the Middle East and Afrca. Negri was formerly employed at Lehman Brothers and will report to Savady Yem, managing director and head of European and Middle East securities structured derivatives sales at Credit Suisse.

Societe Generale Corporate and Investing Banking (SG CIB) has strengthened its coverage of Latin America by appointing Thomas Jacquot as vice-president, equity derivatives, structured products, Latin America.

New York-based Jacquot, who will report to Julien Lascar, director and co-head of Latin America structured products, will cover regions central America, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico. Jacquot previously handles structured products in the region at Calyon, after a spell at JP Morgan.

Jeff Browne has joined law firm Chadbourne & Parke in Moscow as a senior banking associate. Browne moves from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London, where he advised leading financial institutions on structured finance, capital markets and derivatives transactions including structured products. Prior to that, he worked at Mallesons Stephen Jaques in Melbourne. In addition to private practice experience, Browne spent time on secondment at National Australia Bank and Deutsche Bank, London.

Europe-wide trade body the European Derivatives Association (also known as Euderas) changed its name to the European Structured Investment Products Association (Eusipa) in December last year. The association found that the term derivatives was repeatedly, and mistakenly, linked to credit derivatives by the media and political decision-makers, says a spokesperson. Subsequently, the association wanted to clarify that it represented retail structured products issuers, which was the reason behind the name change.

Quote of the month

"The Swiss Structured Products Association doesn't share the opinion

that clients should be bailed out for the Lehman failure in any case"

Eric Wasecha, Swiss Structured Products Association.