People moves

SCG Asset Management (SCG)

SCG Asset Management (SCG) has announced the appointments of Ian Merrill (pictured), Kevin Murphy and Todd Dilatush as president, head of trading, product and risk management, and head of distribution, respectively.

Based in New York, they will be responsible for building out the firm's expanding asset management platform, ‘focusing on product and index development and distribution, as well as sourcing strategic investments that are accretive to the overall platform’.

Merrill joins from Barclays where he spent over 18 years in various senior management roles in derivatives and structured investments, including global head of equities structuring, head of equity derivatives sales, Americas, head of cross-asset sales Americas and head of the iPath exchange traded notes business.

He was one of the most senior executives at the bank’s US equity derivatives division at the time of the structured notes over-issuance fiasco in the US market which has marred the performance of the bank and triggered several litigation cases from investors seeking restitution. Merrill left the UK bank in late February.

Merrill was also a member of the board of directors of Simon Investments’ Simon Markets, for over three years before to its sale to iCapital. Prior to joining Barclays, he was a securities and derivatives lawyer at Sidley Austin in New York, where he worked with global investment bank clients to design and structure investment products.

Murphy is also a seasoned executive with over 30 years of experience in the financial markets at several global investment banks.

He started his career as a derivatives trader in New York and London across fixed income, foreign exchange and equity markets and held senior management roles in structured equity derivative trading teams at J.P. Morgan, Lehman Brothers and Barclays.

At Barclays, he managed global trading, structuring and sales teams focusing on client solutions and structured transactions, including corporate derivatives, margin financing, structured investment products, quantitative investment strategies and fund derivative solutions.

Murphy’s roles also included significant infrastructure design, capital allocation and risk oversight across the global markets businesses, as well as extensive regulatory oversight responsibilities ranging from Federal Reserve CCAR, stress testing, benchmark administration and model valuation. He was head of risk, capital and platforms within the global equities division when he left Barclays in 2020.

In addition, Todd Dilatush previously director of national sales for multi-issuer structured products and annuities platform Luma Financial Technologies, has joined SCG in a similar role. At Luma, he was responsible for Luma’s sales to structured product distributors including private banks, broker dealers and independent advisors. Prior to joining Luma, Dilatush spent over 16 years in cross-asset solution sales at Barclays Capital and Natixis, where he was responsible for the design, development, and retail distribution of structured products with broker-dealers, independent broker-dealers, and intermediaries. He has also held positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Merrill Lynch.

The new hires complement other recent appointments in quantitative analytics and data science, as the firm seeks to respond to investor needs with advanced derivative-based solutions, said Sachs.

Leonteq

Leonteq has hired Anouch Wilhelms as head public distribution Germany/ Austria based in Frankfurt.

In his new role, Wilhelms (pictured) will report to Michael Seifried, head retail flow business at the Swiss structured products specialist, also based in Frankfurt.

The appointment is part of Leonteq’s build up in Germany where it has hired a team of industry experts to drive the newly established retail flow business initiative, which is designed to further grow and diversify Leonteq's product offering and client franchise, a Leonteq spokesperson told SRP.

“We launched a new initiative in 2022 with the aim of developing an automated retail flow platform to offer clients a large range of securitised leverage products, including warrants,” said the spokesperson.

Wilhelms joins from Société Générale Corporate and Investment Banking (SGCIB) where he was director, derivatives, head of public distribution media. He was part of a group of executives that that transferred to the French bank following the acquisition of Commerzbank’s equity markets & commodities business it acquired, via an agreement signed in November 2018.

At Commerzbank, Wilhelms spent more than 15 years in different roles and was a director, equity markets and commodities, public distribution when he joined Société Générale.

SocGen

Société Générale has announced several changes within its global banking and investor solutions division (GBIS). The French bank has appointed Hatem Mustapha as co-head of global markets activities and head of equities & equity derivatives, succeeding Alexandre Fleury (pictured) in this position. Reporting to both AnneChristine Champion and Fleury, who were appointed co-heads of global banking and investor solutions in March, Mustapha will work alongside Sylvain Cartier, co-head of global markets activities. Mustapha ’s replacement as head of global markets Americas will be announced in due course.

Under the new divisional structure Demetrio Salorio takes the role of head of global banking and advisory, succeeding Pierre Palmieri, who has been proposed to be appointed as group deputy chief executive officer. Salorio will report to both Champion and Fleury.

Ilya Polyakov takes the role of deputy head of global banking and advisory, alongside Alvaro Huete who remains also deputy head of global banking and advisory. Both Polyakov and Huete will report to Salorio.

In addition, Thierry d’Argent has been appointed group country head for the United Kingdom and Ireland, and CEO of Societe Generale London Branch, replacing Salorio in this role. d’Argent will report to both Champion and Fleury.

Mustapha, Polyakov, d’Argent and Salorio will be members of the group’s management committee.

The appointments are part of Slawomir Krupa’s reorganisation of the bank’s roadmap in global banking and investor solutions which resulted in several changes to its equity derivatives team including the departure of Julien Lascar, global head of equity derivative sales, and the appointments of Eric Jungers and Jean-Francois Mastrangelo as co-heads of equities & equity derivatives (EQD) for Apac reporting to Jérome Niddam, Apac head of global markets, with a functional reporting line to Fleury and Cartier.

Krupa was appointed chief executive officer in September 2022 after an 18-month stint as deputy general manager, and head of global banking and investor solutions.

Barclays

Barclays has appointed Scott McDavid and Ronnie Wexler to run the global equities business which houses the bank’s structured products activities, and report to the bank’s co-heads of global markets Adeel Khan and Stephen Dainton.

McDavid will join Barclays in September as global head of equities. Based in New York he will report to Khan. In this role, he will lead the global equities team and have oversight and responsibility for equities distribution and prime. He will also have a strategic focus on the bank’s platform complex. In addition to partnering with macro, credit and securitised products, McDavid will work in partnership with investment banking to drive progress across the CIB.

McDavid joins from Morgan Stanley where he spent over 18 years. In his most recent role, he was co-head of equities trading for Americas with primary responsibility and oversight over flow and structured derivatives, central risk management and the delta one desks. Prior to Morgan Stanley, Scott spent eight years with Susquehanna Investment Group in equity derivatives trading.

Wexler (pictured) will join Barclays in June as global head of equities distribution. He will report to Dainton and will be based in New York. Wexler will be responsible for growing the bank’s equities client franchise across sales, trading and research.

Wexler joins Barclays from NYDIG where he has served as global head of business development since August 2020. Prior to this, he spent 19 years at Goldman Sachs where he held several senior positions across securities division distribution, most recently as partner and co-head of Americas equities distribution & execution.

In this role, he was responsible for all client facing functions across execution services, derivatives, and research sales. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2001 and was one of the founding members of the bank’s cross-asset sales desk.

Patron Investments

Tom Karlsson has joined Patron Investments, an investment management firm specialised in derivatives, options and family offices as a partner and portfolio manager, in London.

Karlsson (pictured) joins from Dunn Capital where he was a director of volatility strategies since January 2021.

Prior to that, Karlsson spent more than four years at Susquehanna International Group (SIG) where he was head of European options sales in Dublin.

Karlsson joined Susquehanna’s European headquarters in Dublin after 11 years in London working for several investment banks including HSBC where he was equity derivatives sales; as well as Deutsche Bank and Société Générale where he was a vice president in equity flow and structured products sales to Nordic institutional clients.

He also worked for J.P. Morgan and Pohjola Bank in various derivatives sales roles covering institutional clients mainly in the Nordics, the UK and Benelux. Karlsson started his career in his home country of Finland working at the Helsinki Exchange in 2001 selling equity derivatives to Eurex market makers.

ING has appointed Jan Talsma as director, client solutions group (CSG) investment solutions for Europe, Middle East & Africa (Emea) within its Financial Markets business. In his new role, Talsma (pictured) will further drive the roll out of one of Financial Markets’ growth pillars, equity derivatives, structured notes, and Sprinters to ING’s financial institution clients.

He will be based in Amsterdam and report to Zico Yeh, who has been heading the CSG investment solutions Emea team since November 2022 after returning to structured products from a stint as director at ING Wholesale Banking’s single family office desk.

Talsma joined ING from Citigroup, where he has worked 19 years in different roles, dealing with equity derivatives, cross asset solutions sales and structured products on both the buy side and sell side. While at Citigroup, Talsma was located in London and Amsterdam.