Merrill Lynch has boosted fixed-income trading on its nascent Hong Kong desk with a pair of senior hires.Ravi Mankude, interest-rates trader at Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong, joins as a managing director to run local-market rates trading and structuring and Vivek Mohindra, director and credit structurer at Citigroup in Singapore, joins as a director for local markets cash and credit derivatives trading.
Rig Karkhanis, managing director and head of fx and local-currency trading in Hong Kong, said the hires are part of the move to build up regional trading following the decision to shift staff from Tokyo to establish a Hong Kong desk (DW, 1/27). G-7 trading will remain in Japan while Asian trading and sales is shifting closer to the clients.
"I expect quite a few additional hires," said Karkhanis, noting three to four local markets traders will be added in the coming months. As for the duo, who start in the next few weeks, Mankude will report to Karkhanis while Mohindra will report jointly to Karkhanis and Peter Walshe, head of Pacific Rim credit products and rates in Tokyo.
Richard Tesvich, spokesman at Citi, confirmed the departure and said a replacement will be announced shortly while Michael West, spokesman at Deutsche Bank, did not respond to messages by press time.
