Forefront Fintech Digest Week in Review: August 28-September 1
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Broker News
Citigroup Hires Goldman’s Carles Jou To Bolster European Leveraged Finance
Financial News | Paul Clarke
Citigroup has hired a senior Goldman Sachs banker for its leveraged finance team as the Wall Street bank looks to bolster the unit in Europe. Carles Jou has joined Citi as a managing director within its loans and leveraged finance unit, according to a memo seen by Financial News. He joins after 14 years at Goldman Sachs and will focus on financial sponsor clients in Europe. He was previously based in Paris but will move to London for his new role. The memo from Uday Malhotra and Paul Gibbs, c0-heads of loans and leveraged finance at Citigroup in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said that the unit "represented a significant growth opportunity for Citi".
UBS’s Credit Suisse Takeover: How the Demise of One Swiss Bank Has Built up the Dominance of Its Rival
Financial News | Paul Clarke
UBS was forced into a $3.25bn shotgun marriage with its cross-town rival in March, but so far it looks like it has pulled off a great deal. A $29bn boost from so-called negative goodwill payments to the acquisition pushed UBS to the biggest quarterly profit ever from a bank, but the tie-up has a long way to go. UBS chief executive Sergio Ermotti described the past three months as intense as working how to pull off the complex merger between two systematically important banks was being finalised. Such a merger has not been done since the 2008 financial crisis. He added that the acquisition would help UBS grow.
The Macro View: House of Cards – Is the US Heading Into a New Banking Crisis?
Best Execution | Gill Wadsworth
The US banking system is looking increasingly vulnerable as interest rate rises put pressure on liquidity and capital reserves. Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic could indicate the start of a wider collapse – but how did the banks end up in this mess and why were precautions not put in place? Gill Wadsworth explores the impact these nerves are having on the market. The American people are “probably as confused about banking as ever and that has consequences”, chief executive Warren Buffett warned shareholders at the Berkshire Hathaway AGM this May.?
Exchange, ATS & Clearing News
Nasdaq Names Sarah Youngwood as CFO
Markets Media | Staff
Nasdaq, Inc. announced the appointment of nbsp;Sarah Youngwood as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, effective December 1, 2023. Youngwood will succeed nbsp;Ann Dennison, who has held the role since 2021 and will remain at the company until the end of the year to ensure an orderly transition. Youngwood is an accomplished leader in the financial services industry, having previously served as Chief Financial Officer and Group Executive Board member for UBS Group, where she held a key role in modernizing the bank’s infrastructure and the acquisition of Credit Suisse.
LCH SA Names Corentine Poilvet-Clédière as CEO
Markets Media | Staff
LCH Group announces that Corentine Poilvet-Clédière has been appointed CEO of LCH SA, the European CCP based in Paris. Corentine will assume the role on 1 October 2023, subject to any required regulatory approvals and will report to Daniel Maguire, LSEG Head of Post Trade and CEO of LCH Group. The appointment follows the decision from Christophe Hémon to step down as CEO of LCH SA, having been in office since 2004. Corentine has over 15 years’ experience working in financial markets. She is currently Head of RepoClear and Collateral Management, LCH SA, where she is responsible for the euro-denominated debt and repo clearing service, RepoClear, as well as the clearing house’s collateral management function.?
Nasdaq Moves Second Matching Engine to AWS Cloud
WatersTechnology | Max Bowie
Nasdaq has completed the migration of its Nasdaq Bond Exchange to Amazon Web Services’ cloud, marking the second Nasdaq marketplace to move matching engines to the cloud. Nasdaq is in the process of migrating all its markets, as well as its market data and back-office and clearing operations to the cloud over a 10-year period, as part of an agreement signed between the exchange and AWS in November 2021, starting with its MRX options market last December. The Bond Exchange went live on August 21, and will be followed by its GemX options market (the former ISE Gemini exchange platform), which is on track to migrate later this year.
Vendor News
MSCI Develops Conversational AI for Portfolio and Risk Analysis Using Google Cloud
The Desk | Dan Barnes
Index and information services provider, MSCI, is expanding its partnership with Google Cloud to try and boost the development of generative AI tools for the investment industry. Using Google Cloud’s generative AI platform Vertex AI and climate technology, including BigQuery Geospatial and Earth Engine. the solutions will help MSCI clients better manage portfolio risks and opportunities and make informed investment decisions. “The AI revolution has led to rising expectations among companies and investors, who want faster access to higher-quality data, analytics, and actionable insights,” said Henry Fernandez, chairman and chief executive officer at MSCI.
LiquidityBook Continues to Bolster Tech Expertise, Appoints VP of Engineering from Twitter
Press Release | N/A
LiquidityBook, a leading provider of cloud-native buy- and sell-side trading solutions, announced today the hire of Mr. Can Envarli as VP of Engineering. Reporting directly to Chief Technology Officer Shawn Samuel, Mr. Envarlis primary focus will be to lead and cultivate LiquidityBooks growing engineering team. Working alongside other members of LiquidityBooks leadership team, Mr. Envarli will be responsible for overseeing the development and execution of innovative engineering strategies. The firms second appointment from Twitter in recent months, Mr. Envarlis hire highlights LiquidityBooks ongoing mission to optimize its user experience and keep clients at the center of its vision.
Plato Partnership Adds Liquidnet as First Strategic Partner
Markets Media | Staff
Plato Partnership, the not-for-profit member organisation bringing creative solutions and efficiencies to today’s equity marketplace, has admitted Liquidnet, the technology-driven, agency execution specialist, as its inaugural Strategic Partner. Liquidnet brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in capital markets to the Partnership. Leveraging their unique perspective, Liquidnet will play a pivotal role in shaping and informing Plato’s initiatives across the capital markets landscape. As a Strategic Partner, Liquidnet will actively participate in three of Plato’s core initiatives.
SS&C Advent Is Working Towards Its Cloud Evolution
WatersTechnology | Nyela Graham
These days, developments among capital markets tech vendors typically include a melting pot of focus areas: artificial intelligence, Big Data, and the cloud, just to name a few. In the case of the latter subject, the last five years have seen a variety of vendors across the industry move toward cloud-native tools as their end users’ tech appetites change. In 2020, SS&C Advent laid out the steps it would take to move its suite of solutions to a cloud-native model. Underpinning the buy-side specialist is the Geneva portfolio management system, the Moxy order management system, the APX client management solution, and Genesis, the company’s portfolio construction and rebalancing offering.
Buy-Side News
Allianz Global Investors Taps UBS Asset Management for New Head of Equity Europe Core and Value
The TRADE News | Wesley Bray
Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI) has appointed Kayvan Vahid as head of equity Europe core and value. Vahid joins AllianzGI from UBS Asset Management where he served in a variety of roles over the last 20 years. Most recently, Vahid served as deputy head of global value equity and head of European mid cap equities, where he held responsibility for managing a range of institutional and retail funds across global, European and UK equity mandates. Prior to that, he served as a portfolio manager for European small and mid-caps as well as a European equities research analyst.?
Union Investment’s Trading Head Hock Steps Away From Role To Pursue Digital Asset Aspirations
The TRADE News | Annabel Smith
Union Investment’s Christoph Hock is set to step away from his role as head of multi-asset trading later this year to pursue an opportunity in digital assets and tokenisation within the asset management firm, The TRADE can reveal. Union is bolstering its digital assets division, The TRADE understands. His new role is not yet public but will be communicated in due course. “He [Hock] will be responsible to new important tasks within the Union Investment Group that deal with strategic issues surrounding future topics such as the token economy, digital assets and data science,” said a spokesperson for Union Investment’s asset management division. Hock declined to comment.
领英推荐
Hedge Fund Legacy Capital Hires From Rivals to Expand FX Desk in Brazil
Bloomberg News | Vinicius Andrade
Legacy Capital, one of Brazil’s largest independent hedge fund managers, is beefing up its foreign-exchange desk. Bruno Guimaraes and Claudio Margulies will start next month focusing on G10 and emerging-market currencies, according to Chief Investment Officer Felipe Guerra, who oversees about 29 billion reais ($5.9 billion) in assets and helped found the Sao Paulo-based firm. The hirings come as the broad hedge fund industry is struggling with high interest rates and fleeing clients. Local hedge funds have seen net redemptions of about 61 billion reais so far this year through July, following a 86 billion-real outflow last year, according to Brazil’s capital-markets association Anbima.
M&A /Investment News
Goldman Is Selling A Wealth-Advisory Unit To $240 Billion Money Manager
Bloomberg News | Sridhar Natarajan
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. struck a deal to sell an investment-advisory business aimed at the mass-affluent market to Creative Planning LLC, a wealth-management firm that oversees about $240 billion. The bank agreed to sell the business, with $29 billion in assets, that grew out of United Capital, a registered investment adviser it purchased for $750 million, according to a statement.
Tradeweb Completes A $125M Yieldbroker Acquisition
The DESK | Alex Pugh
Multi-asset market operator Tradeweb Markets has completed its acquisition of Yieldbroker, an Australian trading platform for Australian and New Zealand government bonds and interest rate derivatives covering the institutional, wholesale and primary segments.The $125 million all-cash transaction was announced in May 2023. Billy Hult, CEO of Tradeweb, said: “Tradeweb and Yieldbroker share a strong commitment to client collaboration and continuous innovation, and both of us were born out of a dealer-owned structure."
ICE Deal for Black Knight to Proceed As FTC Drops Challenge
Bloomberg News |?Leah Nylen
Intercontinental Exchange Inc. can move forward with its takeover of Black Knight Inc. after the US Federal Trade Commission accepted a binding settlement that will see key mortgage software products sold to rival Constellation Software Inc. FTC commissioners voted to accept the settlement Thursday, the agency said in a release. Under the agreement, the companies will divest Black Knight’s Empower loan origination software and its Optimal Blue business to Toronto-based Constellation. Optimal Blue is the most widely used software for identifying and securing loan rates, used by lender for about 40% of the residential mortgages originated in the US each year, the FTC said.
Regulatory & Legal News
Gary Gensler Unleashes Biggest SEC Regulatory Blitz Since Financial Crisis
Financial Times | Brooke Masters?
US Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler has hit the financial sector with more new major rules and regulatory proposals than any predecessor since the response to the 2008 global financial crisis, a new tally shows. Gensler’s SEC has put forward 47 proposals that substantially affect market participants and adopted 22 of them in the first 850 days of his leadership, ending August 15, the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation calculated. That is the most of both since Mary Schapiro, who oversaw the agency’s initial response to the financial crisis after she became chair in January 2009 and put forward 59 proposals and 18 final rules.
SEC Approves IntelligentCross ATS
Traders Magazine | Staff
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved a FINRA proposed rule change to add IntelligentCross ATS as a new entrant to the FINRA Alternative Display Facility (ADF).? “This decision is a win for all investors,” said Roman Ginis, Founder and CEO of Imperative Execution, the parent company of IntelligentCross ATS. “The addition of our displayed liquidity to the public quote will make these quotations available to all market participants and enable them to access better prices, bringing more quality liquidity, performance, and price discovery to the broader markets,” he added.
Wells Fargo Fined $35M For Overcharging Financial Advice Clients
Financial News | Kenneth Corbin
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has fined Wells Fargo $35m for allegedly overcharging nearly 11,000 clients a total of $26.8m in advisory fees. The commission alleges that advisers agreed with clients to reduce the firm’s standard fees, making typed or handwritten notes to that effect on their adviser agreements. But in many cases, Wells Fargo’s account-processing employees didn’t enter the reduced rate, so clients were charged the standard adviser fee — higher than what they had agreed on. Wells Fargo has since updated its compliance protocols, and the SEC noted that it has repaid affected clients around $40m to cover the overcharges and interest.
CFTC Orders Goldman Sachs To Pay $5.5 Million For Recordkeeping Violations
Traders Magazine | Staff
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued an order simultaneously filing and settling charges against Goldman Sachs & Co. The order finds Goldman violated the cease-and-desist provision of a prior order and committed recordkeeping violations in connection with its failure to properly record and retain certain audio files. [See CFTC Press Release No. 8086-19]? ?The order requires Goldman to pay a $5.5 million civil monetary penalty and to cease and desist from further violations of the recordkeeping provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations, as charged.?
Crypto?& Digital Asset News
The ‘Fidelity Mafia’ Behind Big Crypto
Wall Street Journal | Vicky Ge Huang
Some of the most prominent players in the digital-assets industry cut their teeth at the same place: Fidelity Investments. A storied mutual-fund powerhouse, Fidelity is a cornerstone of the traditional financial system that the founders of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies intended to disrupt. Yet the 77-year-old company became a bitcoin pioneer in 2014, mining the token when it was trading around $400. It encouraged employees to experiment with blockchain technology and develop new products that led to the launch of its crypto business unit four years later.??
Grayscale's Court Win Over SEC Lifts Hopes for Bitcoin ETF Approval
Wall Street Journal | Paul Kiernan & Alexander Osipovich
A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Securities and Exchange Commission must reconsider crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments’ application to launch the first bitcoin exchange-traded fund, the latest setback for SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s efforts to regulate the upstart industry. Bitcoin-related assets surged on the news, which traders were betting would pave the way for broad investor adoption of ETFs backed by bitcoin rather than futures. Coinbase Global, the largest publicly traded crypto exchange, rose 14%, and bitcoin futures rose 6%.
Binance to Gradually End Support for BUSD Products
CoinDesk | Jamie Crawley
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance said it will "gradually" end support for its BUSD stablecoin, removing it from spot and margin trading pairs. Users have been asked to convert their BUSD into other assets by February next year in an announcement on Thursday. In the more immediate future, Binance is delisting BUSD as a loanable asset on Sept. 6 and will cease withdrawals of Binance-peg BUSD tokens via BNB Chain, Avalanche, Polygon and Tron on Sept. 7. A decision to end support for BUSD has been expected since stablecoin issuer Paxos was ordered to stop minting the coin in February.
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