Derivs - Equity

UBS has hired Yash Agarwal as an exotic equity derivatives trader in Hong Kong, reporting to Winnie Chui, Asia head of equity exotics trading for the bank.

Dimitri Cleanis, a v.p. in exotic equity derivatives index trading at Citigroup in London, is joining Credit Suisse in a similar role.

Private banking group EFG International is looking to expand its Asia structured products platform under its subsidiary EFG Financial Products.

Structured products boutique Luxembourg Financial Group and Swedbank recently launched a fund that uses short- and long-term options to capture growth from a range of underlyings while employing a mechanism to help mitigate losses in case the fund performs badly.

Robert Webb, Asia head of equity index options trading at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, has left. The firm has yet to find a replacement.

Sigurbjorn Thorkelsson, head of Asia Pacific equities for Nomura in Hong Kong, reportedly resigned from his post this morning.

Standard Chartered has formed a warrants group in Hong Kong and is targeting its first issue in May, pending a license from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Patrick Pearson, head of financial markets infrastructure within the European Commission's internal market division in Brussels, told Derivatives Week in an exclusive interview with London reporter Rob McGlinchey that the Commission is collecting data from dealers and end-users with a view to drawing up a benchmark of bid/ask spreads. The aim is to help shave users' hedging costs and determine how expensive it would be on top for users to clear their trades.

Wahid Chaudhry, a multi-asset cash and derivatives trader for Barclays Capital in London, has moved to the firm’s Hong Kong office to trade exotic equity derivatives.

Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank, formerly Calyon, has promoted Fréderic Meron to head global equity and fund-linked derivatives and Ahmed Kachenoura to run global sales for the group as well as all flow and delta-one sales and trading.

Credit Suisse recently relocated Cameron Hedger, head of fund-linked derivatives for Asia ex-Japan, to London to be deputy co-global head of fund-linked products alongside Mounir Elarchi.

Matthew Nadel, the head of equity derivatives at Bank Hapoalim, has left the Israeli bank for Société Genéralé and two other senior staffers have defected to Nomura Securities.