Merlin Securities, a prime brokerage services and technology provider for hedge funds, funds of funds and long-only managers, forms a new equity sales coverage and content division Merlin Institutional Group.
Headed by Jesse Cole and Bryan Miller in New York, Merlin Institutional Group will augment and expand Merlins agency trading capabilities. The Group will focus on delivering traditional institutional equity sales coverage and content to medium and large hedge funds. The group will provide clients with services such as corporate access, company modeling and trading ideas.
Jesse W. Cole joins Merlin from Schonfeld IBS, where he was a member of the institutional sales and trading group since its inception in 2004. In that position, he grew the business from a new entity to a well-known execution platform. Prior to Schonfeld, Cole was with Pali Capital, where he served as a research sales associate focused on international accounts, primarily based in Europe.
Bryan Miller was most recently with the institutional research sales and trading group at Collins Stewart. In this position, Miller was also an integral part of the firms syndicate group and worked on a number of corporate finance deals. Prior to that, Miller was with a start-up equity sales and trading firm, Burlington Capital Markets, which was acquired by Collins Stewart in 2005. Miller began his career at CIBC Oppenheimer as an institutional equities research salesperson.
Merlin Institutional Group represents an important development for Merlin, says Stephan Vermut, founder and managing partner of Merlin. We have built our reputation on providing excellence in prime brokerage, reporting, trading, and operational support for our clients. With the addition of this new team, we will now be in a position to provide clients with investment ideas, research and modeling.
Jesse and Bryan have been tasked with building out this group and bring with them a wealth of institutional sales experience. Both are recognized in the industry for their expertise, and we are delighted to welcome them to Merlin.
L.D.