Patrick Whalen joined AllianceBernstein as global head of trading. The career sellsider comes to the buyside with an equities and derivatives background that dates back to 1985. "Our goal will be to further integrate the flow of information into the investment process in order to enhance the overall returns for our clients," Whalen said in a recent press release.
The position opened earlier this year when the previous global head of trading, Keith Gertsen, took a similar position at Viking Global in Greenwich, Conn. Whalen was featured in Traders Magazine’s November 2004 cover story, shortly after joining Lehman Brothers as global head of equity trading. The story outlined Lehman’s push to raise its profile in equity trading by offering more services beyond high-touch trading. During his five years at Lehman, he oversaw the restructuring of the firm’s trading operations.
Earlier in his career, Whalen spent 12 years at Morgan Stanley, where he oversaw a number of products. After heading European derivatives, he was then tapped to head the global derivatives business in 1997. Five years later, Whalen became the head of U.S. cash equities.
Owain Self became UBS’s head of algorithmic trading for the Americas, as well as emerging markets, Europe and Asia. UBS created the position to use its expertise, innovations and technologies to enhance its cross-regional coverage. As part of his various responsibilities within UBS’s European trading group, Self worked as the EMEA head of algorithmic trading for the last four years. During that time, he developed strategies. Self will work in UBS’s Stamford office and run the cross-regional group from the U.S.
Jonathan Schlossberg joined Lime Brokerage as a director to lead the development of its options business. Schlossberg, an 11-year industry veteran, came from Banc of America Securities. During his three years there, he worked on a number of initiatives, including the development of a trading engine for options specialists.
Peter Cairney joined Lazard Capital Markets in New York as a director and senior sales trader. Cairney, a 16-year veteran, previously spent 10 years at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Ore. He reports to Scott McLaughlin, who heads sales and trading at Lazard.
Mike Horan has joined Lek Securities in Chicago to cover sellside accounts. Horan, a 29-year veteran, previously operated his own $2-brokerage firm on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, where he spent 20 years. He reports to John Joyce, who manages the upstairs trading operation.
Antonio Toirac joined Cabrera Capital Markets’ international desk in Boston. Toirac, a 12-year veteran who spent his previous seven years in trading at Wellington Management, trades European stocks live hours. He reports to Larry Peruzzi, who oversees Cabrera’s international effort and its Boston office.
Kirsten Fitzgibbons joined Fidelity Capital Markets as an international sales trader in Boston. Fitzgibbons, a 14-year veteran, previously traded Asian stocks at Liberty Square Asset Management for nearly four years. Prior to that, she spent 10 years at the Boston Co., where she managed international trading.
Cindy Pelton joined Esposito Securities’ Dallas office as an institutional trader. Pelton, with nearly 20 years experience, came from NexBank Securities. She was previously with Lehman Brothers, where she spent 10 years.
Weeden & Co. added two veteran sales traders to its program trading group. Chris Johnson and Jayme Casey both joined Weeden’s Greenwich, Conn. office. Johnson, a 16-year veteran, was previously a director in the program trading unit at Merrill Lynch. Casey, a 14-year veteran, was previously at UBS, where he ran program trading. The Weeden program desk now has 15 professionals.
Nick Savona joined Toronto-based Sandfire Securities as a senior sales trader and managing director. Savona, a 17-year veteran, was previously with Evergreen Capital Partners. At Sandfire, Savona covers Canadian and U.S. institutional accounts.
JonesTrading’s new options trading team is headed in Toronto by Tom Steen, a 19-year veteran and former managing director in Merrill Lynch’s derivatives group. He joined last summer from a hedge fund in Japan.
In New York, Mark Neuman joined as a managing director. Neuman, formerly of Susquehanna International Group in New York, spent nine years as a senior producer in derivatives at Merrill Lynch. Rich Breitenecker was hired to head the derivatives agency trading desk. Breitenecker, formerly of Barclays Capital, has a background in derivatives sales at Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch.
In Chicago, Chris Rich joined as its head options strategist. Rich, with more than 25 years experience, was previously a senior options strategist at Newedge Group. Also, Jeff Smoke moved from Jones’ Orlando, Fla., office to its desk in Chicago to help run day-to-day operations. Prior to Jones, Smoke was a derivatives trader in Chicago at Equitec Proprietary Markets.
New York-based Lighthouse Financial added an 11-man derivatives team to its sales and trading operation. Tim Youssef and Nimit Savani, both previously with Louis Capital Markets, will lead the new agency-only trading group. Youssef, a 15-year-plus veteran, was a partner and headed U.S. derivatives at Louis Capital. Savani, with 10-plus years in derivatives, was a director there.
Lighthouse equity derivatives coverage includes Marc Brown, from Societe Generale; Erin Maculaitis, from Amerivest; and Scott Goldberg, from Natixis. ETF, index derivatives and Delta 1 coverage includes Chris O’Neil and Kevin Cody, both from Icap, and Dave Barone, from Collins Stewart. Credit derivatives and high-yield fixed income coverage includes Steven Luskey and Gibson Kinloch, both from MF Global. David Vroubel, from Icap, will handle ETF and Delta 1 coverage.
Cowen Group beefed up its portfolio trading division with five hires. Rafael Paredes and Andrew Chao join as directors in an expanded quantitative trading solutions group. Kahina Madoun, Roman Kumits and Dr. Ihab Massry join as vice presidents. Paredes, Chao and Massry join from Fidelity Capital Markets, where Paredes headed portfolio trading; previously, he worked on the portfolio trading desk at Prudential Securities.
Before Fidelity, Chao was at Citigroup and predecessor firms Salomon Brothers/ Salomon Smith Barney as a trader. Massry developed portfolio trading algorithms and implemented transaction-cost analytics to support the portfolio trading desk at Fidelity. Prior to Fidelity, he held several roles within Prudential Equity Group-including the development of trading systems, algorithms and technology for portfolio trading. Kumits and Madoun join from Morgan Stanley. Previously, Kumits was at BNY ConvergEx Group. Madoun generated, developed and ran quantitative trading strategies for quant funds at Morgan Stanley. At Cowen, the group reports to Stuart Gould, head of portfolio trading.
FBR Capital Markets hired two traders from Citigroup and one from Wachovia Securities. FBR brought on John Gillin from Wachovia Securities to run sales trading out of the firm’s Arlington headquarters. It brought on Timothy Bricker from Citi to run sales trading in San Francisco. It also hired Mark Costello from Citi as a position trader covering the integrated oil, oil services and utilities sectors. Gillin, a 22-year veteran, ran sales trading at Wachovia. He previously worked at Deutsche Bank Alex Brown and Wertheim & Co. Bricker has 23 years of experience, spending the last seven as head of West Coast sales trading at Citi. He held the same position at ING Capital Markets before that. Costello spent nearly 15 years at Citi, lastly as head of energy and utilities trading.
Nomura Securities International, a U.S. broker-dealer unit of Japan’s Nomura Group, has made hires in program trading and derivatives. Since October 2008 it has hired a six-person program trading team from Barclays Capital that had been with Lehman Brothers. The team is led by Kevin Brady. In addition, Nomura hired a "significant portion" of the former quant analytics and systematic trading team of Lehman Brothers in November 2008, the firm stated. The team, led by Michael Bos, Amit Manwani and Mark Mancini, plans to offer a suite of algorithms by the end of the year. On the equity derivatives side, Nomura, last month, hired 14 salespeople and traders, including 10 from Bank of America. The team is led by Dmitriy Genkin and will focus on flow trading and structured derivatives. The flow group will focus on single stock options, index options, and ETFs. It also plans to build out an OTC options and Delta-1 offering.
Thomas Tesauro joined institutional brokerage Fidelity Capital Markets to lead its prime brokerage group as executive vice president. Tesauro, a 25-year-plus veteran, will be responsible for strategy and day-to-day operations in Boston. Before joining Fidelity, Tesauro was a managing director at New York-based S3 Partners, a specialized securities lender. He also spent almost 15 years at Citigroup and Smith Barney, where he co-headed prime brokerage.
Brian Spengemann joined UNX as its global head of sales. Spengemann, a 15-year industry veteran, was previously a managing director in Merrill Lynch’s portfolio, algorithmic and electronic trading group. He also helped set up Credit Suisse’s global portfolio trading business and ran its domestic portfolio trading desk during his seven years there.
Jefferies & Co. beefed up its sales and trading for its quantitative strategies effort, and brought in six investment pros. The group is responsible for algorithmic and other quantitative-based trading products. Jatin Suryawanshi will lead the group as a managing director and head of global quantitative strategies. He will develop the firm’s algorithmic strategy and products. He joins from UBS, where he was head of algorithmic trading, Americas. There, he led a team of quants and developers responsible for the algorithmic offering.
Partha Sarkar and Sanjay Girdhar have also joined Jefferies as senior vice presidents within quantitative strategies. Sarkar, a 10-year veteran, and Girdhar, a five-year veteran, were most recently at UBS, where they developed algorithmic trading products. The hires in algorithmic sales are Michael Healey, James Gibbons and Stephanie Libien. Healey joins as senior vice president from UBS. Gibbons and Libien join as vice presidents, from Liquidnet and UBS, respectively.
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