Macquarie Securities has hired almost a dozen senior-level sales traders and sales staff for its high-touch desk, a move designed to bring in more block trading and leverage the brokerage firm’s extensive research offering.
The high-touch hires will more fully utilize revamped indications of interest (IOIs) to attract the buyside. According to Ken Savio, senior managing director and U.S. head of Macquarie Securities, the buyside today wants to trade more discreetly and in size.
"IOIs are becoming a more regular part of the traders’ daily workflow," Savio said. "We are sending out more IOis now than ever before. The buyside wants to trade blocks and have less market impact, and we see that as our job to deliver."
Brokers in the last year or so have improved the quality of IOIs. These electronic messages sent to the buyside that advertise trading situations are today more likely to represent a real order-a natural-than in the past, when they were often fishing expeditions. Brokers see quality IOIs as the best way to increase their high-touch business.
But IOIs are only part of the plan at Macquarie. At the root of the strategy are the traders and sales traders, Savio said, who will leverage the firm’s global research product.
Macquarie is a top 10 global research firm, according to its website, with more than 350 equity research professionals covering approximately 2,250 stocks around the world. It has always used its research as a springboard to trading, and with these new hires, the firm hopes to bring in even more trading business.
"The collective expertise, top-tier client relationships and product knowledge of our new hires will better deliver Macquarie’s research content and trading capabilities to new and existing clients." Savio said. "I want our distribution capabilities to be more in sync with the quality of the research product we offer."
Macquarie also has six professionals dedicated to its corporate access business, he added.
Armed with a quiver full of research, and reach into the C-suite, the firm’s new additions, which have on average more than 15 years of experience, are in place on the New York and Boston trading desks. Savio spent almost his entire career at Bear Stearns, where he rose to global head of trading and sales trading. He told Traders Magazine the veterans brought more experience to the desk. Macquarie added new hires without materially adding to its overall count.
Here are the hires:
Michael Cornette has been appointed managing director and head of U.S. trading. Cornette, who has more than 20 years of experience in equities trading, joins from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He was also co-head of cash trading at Bear Stearns. Robert DeRosa joins as managing director and co-head of U.S. sales trading. DeRosa, also with more than 20 years of experience, was previously an executive director at JPMorgan and a managing director at Bear Stearns prior to it being acquired. He has also worked in sales trading at Oppenheimer and CIBC. Nicholas Struk joins as a managing director and co-head of U.S. sales trading. He was previously an executive director at UBS.
These senior appointments will have management responsibility for Macquarie’s Securities U.S. sales trading and trading teams located in New York, Boston and San Francisco. Further appointments include seven sales traders for the U.S. desk; three as managing directors, three as senior vice presidents and one as a vice president.
Stephen Sibilia, Jon Jensen and Mark Corcoran joined as managing directors. Sibilia has experience covering mutual, hedge and pension fund clients across multiple product lines. Previously, he has held senior roles at Jefferies & Co., Sanford C. Bernstein and Goldman Sachs. Jensen comes from FBR Capital Markets, where he was co-head of trading. He has held senior positions at Bear Stearns, Dresdner Wasserstein and Natwest Securities. Corcoran comes from Lazard Capital Markets. Prior, he was a senior managing director at Bear Stearns and he has previously worked at Lehman Brothers and ING.
John Curley, Brad Hoenig and Allen Jordan joined as senior vice presidents. Curley comes from RBC Capital Markets. Hoenig was a director and institutional equities sales trader at RBC and also worked at Lehman Brothers. Jordan joins from Rochdale Securities and has a long-standing network of senior level relationships throughout the industry.
Tarik Turner joined as a vice president and was previously a director of sales trading at Ticonderoga Securities. Prior, he was a senior vice president at Friedman Billings Ramsey and also worked at Bear Stearns.
In equity sales, the firm hired Khristina McLaughlin and Alexander Martin as managing directors and Tad Nacheff and Jim Isenthol as senior vice presidents. McLaughlin comes from WJB Capital, where she was a director of institutional equity sales. Previously, she worked at Goldman Sachs. Martin joins from Avondale Partners, where he was a director of institutional equity sales. He has previously worked at Ferris, Baker Watts, and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.
Nacheff comes from FBR Capital Markets and had been a partner at ThinkEquity, a boutique investment bank. He has also held equity sales roles at Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers. Isenthol, was most recently director of institutional equities at Soleil Securities. Previously, he was a wealth management advisor at Merrill Lynch.
Despite the long list of hires, Savio said the firm has managed to keep its headcount steady. He is looking for aggressive self-starters who fit into the firm’s entrepreneurial spirit, as well as seasoned professionals who have familiarity with both low- and high-touch trading strategies.
And while much of the focus recently has been on the high-touch desk and hires, Savio said there are some changes coming to the low-touch desk, which is run by Damian Hoult, the firm’s global head of execution services, who recently relocated to New York from Hong Kong. While the firm currently white labels algorithms for clients, it is looking at a creative solution which entails something with more of a proprietary bent to it, he added.
"We are a different culture here – more entrepreneurial – and I want people to be able carve out a niche for themselves," he said. "People who work here can make an impact, and some of the new hires already have."
