Bear Stearns International is planning to grow its London-based interest-rate product group by nearly 50% in the coming months as part of the firm's ambition to become a larger player in the European market, according to George Polychronopoulos, senior managing director. Polychronopoulos, who will lead the effort, joined last month from Deutsche Bank, where he was most recently head of marketing to Scandinavia and Greece (DW, 10/1). Previously he had been head of Scandinavian and Greek interest-rate products. At Bear Stearns, his position is parallel to that of Jérôme Camblain, who runs the sales side.
The new hires will come on the back of merging the firm's government, repo and derivatives trading operations into the new interest-rate trading group that Polychronopoulos now heads. "The strategy to merge makes sense because of synergies on the trading side and because that's the way the clients look at the business," he said. As for Bear Stearns' interest-rate group, "the structure is there, but we just don't have all the people yet," he added. The team currently consists of 14 traders and Polychronopoulos said it would be increased to around 20 as part of the firm's broader commitment to increase its activities in Europe.
