Search results for

Conifer Securities, which provides back- and middle-office solutions to hedge funds, family offices and endowments, has bought Morgan Stanley’s outsourced trading business. The platform provides independent trade execution in equities, options and ETFs to Morgan Stanley’s prime brokerage hedge fund clients. Conifer has also recently hired UBS’s former head of prime brokerage for the Americas, Dick Del Bello, as a senior partner.

Credit Suisse has appointed Chris Tuffey as the new head of European debt syndicate. Tuffey replaces John Fleming, who, after nine years in the job, and 14 at the bank, has left the business. Tuffey has worked at Credit Suisse for 21 years, spending much of the past 10 associated with emerging markets and investment-grade corporate syndication. In addition to syndication, he ran emerging markets origination for the past two years.

More on LTROs

Barclays Capital has poached Adrian McGowan from Deutsche Bank, where he was head of FX complex risk, to head its FX business in Asia. McGowan will be based in Singapore and report to Ivan Ritossa, the bank’s head of global markets – trading, Asia Pacific, and global head of FX and prime services.

Standard Chartered Bank has made three senior appointments of former Lehman Brothers staff to boost its financial markets management team. Remy Klammers becomes the bank’s new global head of fixed-income trading with responsibility for FX, rates, credit and structured products trading. Klammers reports to Lenny Feder, the bank’s group head of financial markets. Klammers was previously managing director of structured products Asia at Lehman. He is being joined by Alexis Suzat, who has been appointed as global head of structured products trading, and Marten Agren, who joins as global head of modelling and analytics group, financial markets.

Private equity businesses have taken a battering from the credit crisis but the industry remains flush with cash commitments from investors and appears to be trying to adapt to a world devoid of easy and cheap financing.

Uncertainty worldwide on the next move in interest rates is leading to short-term volatility and price gyrations in the foreign exchange market.

The fuller acceptance of volatility as an asset has moved closer with a new range of investable indices.

It is too early to call the end of the credit crunch but evidence that the crisis is not worsening, if not starting to ease, was in abundance last month. If March marked the lowest point in the financial crisis, the first half of April gave ample reasons to believe that sentiment is improving – at least in the short term.

UniCredit Markets and Investment Banking has hired Xavier Alexandre as its head of e-commerce and electronic trading for FICC. The bank has yet to finalize the reporting lines for this new position. Alexandre will be based in London.

Banks are paying the price for hanging on to their stuck leveraged loans for so long.

Competition between trading venues is leading to soaring trading volumes in Europe. Brokers are reaping the benefits and incumbent exchanges have yet to feel any pain, despite the success of new competitors.