Wells Fargo Bank is looking to hire one to two equity derivatives marketers/structurers over the next year in San Francisco. The three-strong trading, marketing and structuring team is beefing up to meet customer demand, said Hardy Hodges, head of equity derivatives in San Francisco. The group works with the bank's corporate client base, which consists of smaller and mid-sized corporates in the Western half of the U.S. Although it provides the full gamut of products, it tends to work mainly with hedging and monetization transactions, such as collars and variable pre-paid forwards, said Hodges.
The timing for this move seems odd at first blush. The U.S. stock markets were battered last week, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing below 10,000 for the first time since the middle of October. The bank is unfazed by the gloomy stock market picture because clients are now more inclined to hedge and the bank has yet to fully tap its client base, said Hodges. The bank did not internally approve setting up an equity derivatives group until the middle of last year, and is still working to fully meet client demand, said Hodges.
