Nomura, JP Morgan and BNPP lose clearing execs

McCormack, Serafini and Dixon depart; SG shakes up global markets team; Piterbarg joins Rokos

Lee McCormack: left Nomura

Senior clearing executives departed their roles at three major institutions in May, as banks struggle to make money from a business that has been the victim of postponed implementation and increased capital requirements Lee McCormack, executive director of over-the-counter clearing business development at Nomura, has left following the bank's decision to exit OTC clearing in the US and Europe. Gavin Dixon, BNP Paribas' European head of derivatives clearing services, is set to leave the French bank, while JP Morgan's London-based head of OTC clearing, Hester Serafini, is also set to depart.

A Nomura spokesperson confirmed McCormack's exit, but said Mark Croxon, global product manager for OTC derivatives clearing, and Simon Weetman, head of derivatives clearing sales, would remain at the bank – although it's unclear which roles they will move into.

McCormack joined the Japanese bank in 2012 from Morgan Stanley, where he was an executive director in the OTC derivatives clearing team. Prior to that, he worked at UBS and LCH.Clearnet. His future plans are not known.

Risk reported that Nomura was considering shutting its service in April, and an official announcement was made by the bank in May. Sources said the bank was unable to find clients to make the business economically viable.

BNP Paribas' Dixon confirmed his departure in an email to Risk, and said his next role is "unknown as yet". His exit was met with dismay by fellow clearing experts: "That's a big mistake by BNP – he's great with clients and an expert on clearing," said John Wilson, head of Tradition's DBV-X collateral platform in a Twitter post on May 28.

Serafini exited her role at JP Morgan in May, following three years at the US bank. She joined from Deutsche Bank in 2012, where she was chief risk officer of the bank's fixed-income prime brokerage business.

She spent six years at Deutsche Bank, and previously worked for Goldman Sachs, where she was responsible for risk management for the derivatives prime brokerage business. Her responsibilities will be transferred to her former boss, Nick Forgan, head of global clearing.

Nomura was the fourth bank to exit the OTC client clearing business, following BNY Mellon, Royal Bank of Scotland and State Street. Nomura will continue to offer OTC client clearing in Japan.

JP Morgan warned in February that client clearing returns are "incompatible" with current capital rules, and that revenue generated by the business will have to increase "to a multiple of its current level" if banks are to stay in the game.

 

Societe Generale Corporate and Investment Banking (SG CIB) has shaken up its global markets division with 10 senior moves. The division remains under the supervision of Daniel Fields, head of global markets, with David Escoffier as deputy.

Richard Quessette (pictured), global head of the cross-asset solutions business, has been appointed global head of the newly created equities and derivatives business line, with head of global equity flow Bruno Benoit named as deputy. Quessette has been with the French bank since 1995, while Benoit joined in August 1992 as an interest rate options trader.

Danielle Sindzingre now heads a broadened fixed income and currencies business line, which encompasses flow and structured fixed-income services. She has been head of fixed income and currencies since 2012, having joined the French bank in 1997.

Chris Topple and Christophe Lattuada have been appointed co-heads of prime services activities, while Jerome Jacques and Hatem Mustapha have been named co-heads of a new asset-backed products business line, created jointly with the global finance division.

Peter McGahan, deputy head of global equity flow and head of global equity flow UK, has also been named deputy head of global markets for the US. McGahan joined SG CIB in 2010 after spending 20 years at Citi in the equities team.

In addition, Yann Garnier, head of Asia-Pacific sales for global markets, has been named deputy head of global markets for the region.

Finally, Laure Lemaignen has replaced Lattuada as head of strategy and corporate development for global banking and investor solutions. Lemaignen reports to Didier Valet, head of global banking and investor solutions, and to Valet's deputy, Christophe Mianné.

 

Vladimir Piterbarg, former head of quantitative analytics at Barclays, has joined Rokos Family Office as its head of quantitative analytics. He left the UK bank in February after a 10-year career there, during which time he won Risk's quant of the year award twice – in 2006 and 2011 – for his work on stochastic volatility models and funding issues associated with derivatives pricing, respectively. He was replaced by New York-based Marco Naldi.

Chris Rokos, co-founder of hedge fund Brevan Howard, set up Rokos Family Office in 2013.

 

Tim Cartledge, global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities electronic trading at Barclays, has left the bank. He plans to take some time out from the industry before his next move.

His departure follows a 20-year career in the industry, 11 of which were spent at Barclays. He began his career at Goldman Sachs in 1995 as a foreign exchange options trader, before moving to Credit Suisse a year later for a similar role. He then spent seven years at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein as a managing director and co-head of global forex options, before joining Barclays in 2004 as a managing director and co-head of global forex options, and co-head of global forex electronic trading. He also served as global head of forex trading for single-dealer platform Barx.

 

Richard Herman, global head of fixed income and currencies at Deutsche Bank in New York, has left the firm. Replacing him on an interim basis is Tom Humphrey, head of corporate banking and securities in the Americas.

Herman joined the German bank in 1995, following its merger with Bankers Trust. He worked for 13 years as a fixed-income and derivatives trader, splitting his time between London and Tokyo, before becoming global head of sales for debt and equity in 2008. He has held his most recent role for six months. In April, he was re-elected to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association's board of directors at its annual meeting in Montréal.

Also leaving the German bank is Faraz Munaim, a director in the foreign exchange hedge fund sales team, who is set to join Goldman Sachs in July. He is on gardening leave and is understood to be joining the US bank as a vice-president on the macro forex asset sales desk in New York. He has worked at Deutsche Bank since 2006.

 

Adrian McGowan, global head of foreign exchange trading at Barclays, is retiring from the industry. He has been with Barclays since 2008, and began his current role in October 2013. Before this, he was global head of forex options and forwards, and head of Group of 10 currencies forex for Europe. He has also served as head of forex trading for Asia-Pacific, based in Singapore.

Prior to joining the UK bank, McGowan spent nine years at Deutsche Bank, where he was global head of complex risk and euro bloc flow options trading. His role at Barclays will be filled by Robert Bogucki and Nat Tyce, who will become co-heads of macro trading. Bogucki is currently head of US macro trading, and Tyce is global head of rates trading.

 

Murray Roos has joined Citi as global head of sales for its equities and prime finance divisions in London – a newly created position. Roos joins from Deutsche Bank, where he spent eight years in a variety of senior roles, most recently as global co-head of prime finance and co-head of European equities. Prior to this, he worked at UBS. In his new role, Roos will report to: Derek Bandeen, global head of equities; Okan Pekin, global head of investor services; and Jim O'Donnell, global head of investor sales.

Following Roos' departure, Deutsche Bank has appointed Dixit Joshi as global head of prime finance. Joshi was previously head of Asia-Pacific equities in Hong Kong.

Rob Ebert has also been named head of equities for Asia, Japan and Australia, and co-global head of equities sales. Previously, Ebert was head of equities sales for North America, and prior to that ran European execution services sales. He joined Deutsche Bank as global head of Asia-Pacific sales trading in 1996, after a nine-year career at Morgan Stanley.

 

Ben Bernanke, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, has joined Pimco as a senior adviser. He was in charge of the Federal Reserve until January 2014, when current chair Janet Yellen took over the role.

Bernanke was a member of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve between 2002 to 2005, and also chaired the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed's principal monetary policy-making body. Before joining the Fed, he was a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. In April, it was announced that Bernanke would also advise Chicago-based hedge fund Citadel.

 

Steve Rendon, head of Group of 10 vanilla options at HSBC in London, has been made redundant after four years at the UK bank. He joined in May 2011 as a senior G10 options trader, reporting to Vincent Craignou, who left HSBC in November 2013 to join hedge fund Brevan Howard after some 10 years at the bank.

Rendon previously worked at Morgan Stanley, which he joined in 2005 as part of the bank's New York foreign exchange desk. Previously, he worked at Citi and CME Group.

 

LCH.Clearnet has appointed Ali Hackett to the newly created role of global head of sales and relationship management. Based in New York, Hackett reports to group chief executive officer, Suneel Bakhshi, and will be a member of LCH.Clearnet's executive committee.

She joins from venture capital firm Formation 8, where she was an industry adviser. Prior to this, Hackett worked as senior managing director in the global client development and sales team at CME Group. Before that she spent nearly 20 years at Citi, where she was most recently co-head of global prime finance.

 

Haroon Sana has been appointed global head of rates sales and head of European fixed income at Scotiabank. Sana resurfaces at the Canadian bank after leaving Deutsche Bank in 2013 and taking two years out from the industry.

Sana was global head of rates sales at Deutsche Bank, and has also worked at Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch.

 

Interdealer broker Icap has appointed Ted Bragg as senior vice-president of fixed-income product initiatives in its US securities group. Based in New York, Bragg will be responsible for developing new hybrid fixed-income products.

Bragg joins from BNY Mellon, where he held various senior positions, including head of product management and e-commerce strategy, and co-head of fixed-income trading. He has also worked at Fidelity Capital Markets, Lehman Brothers and Barclays Capital.

 

Law firm Linklaters has appointed Michael Voisin as its global head of capital markets. He takes over from Jim Rice, who has led the firm's capital markets team since 2008. Voisin was made partner in the capital markets practice in 1996 and was previously head of the derivatives and structured products practice.

The firm also named Peter Bevan as global practice head of the financial regulation group, after working as a partner in the group since 2003. Bevan succeeds Michael Kent, who has held the role since 2007. Kent has become finance and projects divisional practice head.