Credit Suisse First Boston last week hired Salomon Smith Barney agency trading head Robert Griffith to head up its expanding credit product trading area as co-head of dollar-denominated interest-rate product trading. Griffith is responsible for all of CSFB's customer and proprietary trading activity in agency and government derivatives, as well as the attendant repo financing of these transactions, according to DW sister publication Bond Week.
"The need to have the capital and manpower in place to handle the volatility coming into the swaps market has never been more important," Griffith said, noting that Mark Pattinson is the other co-head of the operation. Griffith is putting in his second tour of duty with CSFB, having left the firm originally for Salomon. He replaces Irv Goldman, the head of credit product trading for the last several years. Goldman left "voluntarily, and to do his own thing," according to a CSFB spokesman. Calls to Goldman were not returned.
Griffith, who is based in New York, reports in to Jack DeMaio, head of global products, and Trevor Price, the executive board member responsible for the firm's interest-rate businesses. Griffith expressed enthusiasm at the prospect of reuniting with former colleagues. "It is pretty cool to come back after five plus years away and still recognize 40% of the faces."
