Swiss Re Capital Management and Advisory will hire several traders in the coming months for its U.S. weather and environment-linked commodities business. The expansion comes on the heels of the hire of Brian O'Hearne last week as managing director, environment and commodity markets. O'Hearne will be in charge of adding four traders to the New York-based desk of three. "Emissions trading and weather-related derivatives are areas experiencing a lot of growth, and now is the right time to build up the team to take advantage of the environment," said Juerg Trueb, global head of environmental and commodity markets. O'Hearne, previously president and ceo of weather risk trading advisory GuaranteedWeather, was unavailable for comment. Brad Hoggatt, chief operating officer, is temporarily replacing him at his old firm.
Analysts said trading volumes and profits in environmentally-linked derivatives have exploded in the past year as traders rushed to hedge commodity positions affected by natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina and other storms.
