Eight months after announcing its arrival in the nascent credit derivatives market with a pair of high profile hires from Bank of America, HSBC is looking to add at least 10 credit derivatives traders, marketers and structurers in New York, according to a company official. "This is something that has been in the works for more than six months. The ground work has been set and now we're ready to hire," the official said.
The arrival of Rick Briggs, global head of trading for structured credit products at BofA, and Rick Ziwot, BofA's global head of structured credit products, was thought to signal that HSBC was finally ready to start punching its weight in the credit derivatives market (DW, 5/6). Calls to Briggs and Ziwot were not returned.
"They're looking to be quite a presence in the market now and they're going all out to hire new people," said a rival credit derivatives trader. "They've been kind of off and on in the market for about six months. Now they're getting ready to dive in head first."
