Structured moves

US exchange and index provider Nasdaq has hired Steven Bloom as its new senior vice-president of financial products.

Bloom is responsible for developing new Nasdaq indexes, financial products, and derivative securities. He is also responsible for administering Nasdaq's index programme, licensing structured products, and listing third-party sponsored exchange-traded funds.

Bloom was recruited from consultancy Capmark, where he developed and launched exchange-traded funds, indexes and derivative securities. In his new position Bloom reports to Nasdaq executive vice-president and chief marketing officer John Jacobs.

Dutch bank Rabobank has formed a New York-based equity and fund derivatives team within its global financial markets group. The team will focus on clients and business in the Americas region and complement the bank's existing global equity and fund derivatives business, currently managed in London and Hong Kong.

The team will be led by Mark Garbin, managing director and head of equity and fund derivatives for Rabobank in the Americas. Garbin joined the bank in July. Garbin was formerly managing director and managing principal of SG Constellation, a structured finance affiliate of SG. He also co-founded Constellation Financial Management Company, a global structured finance boutique acquired by SG in 2003.

The group will seek to expand the breadth of Rabobank's existing retail equity derivatives product line, distributed through major third-party broker-dealers, Garbin says. The Americas team will also serve clients in the asset management, hedge funds, insurance, and pension sectors.

US law firm Morrison & Foerster is seeking to build a sizeable structured products and derivatives practice based in London.

Anna Pinedo, New York-based partner with Morrison & Foerster, told Structured Products that the firm is looking to hire between 10 and 15 additional professionals for the group. Although the lawyers will be based in London, work will span Europe, Pinedo says, citing Germany and the Netherlands as particularly important markets for the firm along with the UK.

Morrison & Foerster has already enlisted the services of recruitment specialists, chairman Keith Wetmore says.

In May, Morrison & Foerster became the first law firm to win an award from Structured Products magazine in honour of its work on several innovative deals.

UK Investment bank Barclays Capital has hired Pierre Bes as a managing director and head of private bank coverage for Europe.

Bes moves from BNP Paribas, where he worked for eight years in a variety of senior sales roles - most recently serving as head of equity structured products marketing in Benelux and Switzerland.

He replaces Kevin Burke, who has relocated to Singapore. Bes will be based in BarCap's London office and will be responsible for the investor solutions team, which provides private banks with structured products across all asset classes.

German investment bank Deutsche Bank has appointed Sreenivasan Iyer in a new role as head of its debt capital markets and corporate coverage group for Southeast Asia.

Iyer will be based in Singapore and is responsible for Deutsche's structured products, credit derivatives, equity derivatives, foreign exchange and interest rates businesses in the Malaysian, Philippine, Singapore and Thai markets.

Iyer will report to Singapore-based Saleh Romeih, managing director and head of debt capital markets and corporate coverage group for Asia.

Mizuho International, the London-based international securities arm of the Japanese firm Mizuho, has appointed Mark White as head of equity derivatives sales and Antony Reeves as associate director, equity derivatives sales.

Both join from Japanese rival Nomura Securities, which has significantly beefed up its equity derivatives business in the past 18 months. White previously worked as a director of global convertible bond sales in London for Nomura. Reeves, meanwhile, was a director for Japanese hedge fund sales in New York.

In their new roles, White and Reeves report to David Barker, a London-based executive director of Mizuho International.

SG CIB, the investment banking arm of Societe Generale, has appointed Heddy Tsang as managing director of flow and listed products for Asia. Tsang, who is based in Hong Kong, is responsible for expanding SG CIB's warrant business in Asia, opening up new markets and developing new range of flow and listed products across the region.

Tsang was head of public distribution of private investor products at ABN Amro. Prior to joining the Dutch bank, Tsang was with SG CIB equity derivatives and structured products from 2000 to 2004.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

"Over the long-term, this type of market correction benefits the structured products industry. It reminds investors just how volatile markets can be and shows that a guarantee or some form of protection is important"
Arnaud Sarfati, Societe Generale