Citi has hired 13 new staff within its Global Prime Finance business in London and New York, with Asia being the next region for expansion.
John Nicholson, a former Barclays Capital executive, will join Citis US trading team as managing director, and Eric Hughson, a former Commerzbank executive, will become managing director in the London trading desk.
Of the 13 new hires, seven are previous Lehman Brothers and BarCap employees, and five directors previously worked in Morgan Stanley. The moves also distils the Deutsche Bank presence at Citi Prime Finance, with Nick Roe, Global head of Citi Prime Finance, Mark Harrison, European head, and Lane Hocking, head of Citis Asia desk, all ex-Deutsche Bank employees.
The move also builds on the hire in 2009 of Ian Maynard as head of trading, another ex-Lehman Brothers employee.
Speaking to GC.com, Nick Roe said the moves are really to just keep momentum going within the product… [The hires] are all around the synthetic and securities lending trading areas.
Securities lending has been hit hard with falling asset prices, losses in cash collateral reinvestment pools and occasional litigation from disgruntled pension funds. The move from Citi may be a signal that appetite is returning to the sector.
Our balances are quite high in general collateral terms said Roe. People are engaging in the market, more than they have previously, on the easy-to-borrow names, although our specials book has reduced but I think that is the case across the Street. We are anticipating higher demand on the basis of new accounts and new business we have in the pipe-line.
The new hires are focused in New York and London, yet Asia remains a target for new hires by Citi. We will be making hires in Asia, and the head of the desk there Lane Hocking is anticipating making some offers relatively soon to some people in Asia, said Roe.
Roe is also seeing slightly more leverage from clients. The market conditions are prevailing from 2009 to 2010. We are not seeing a great deal of money changing hands on the investor side, other than what is coming out of the pension fund sector which is a heavy focus for us right now. [We are] helping advise the institutional asset managers and the pension funds in terms of their active alpha and absolute return type platforms, which we have done for ATP the Danish type pension fund and we are about to make public a couple of structures and platforms we have created on behalf of clients from the pension fund side.