Société Générale
| Also shortlisted in this category: |
Many dealing houses aspire to be leading players in equity derivatives but only one institution has consistently been at the forefront of innovation in an increasingly competitive area, and that institution is Société Générale, the recipient of this year’s inaugural equity derivatives award.SG has always had a stellar reputation for structuring complex equity-linked structured products and solutions but its equity derivatives business has matured to the point where the bank is able to fully deploy its engineering expertise across all asset classes and customer bases, while retaining a solid footing in its retail equity derivatives trading roots.
"In terms of sheer size, today we are the biggest equity derivatives player in the world. In our global equities and derivatives solutions business we have a total of 3,300 people, of whom 1,400 are front-office traders and financial engineers," says David Escoffier, who runs SG’s global equities and derivatives solutions business from London. This assertion is backed by figures from analysts at JPMorgan, who put SG’s revenues from equity derivatives well ahead of its nearest competitor. They estimate SG’s annual equity derivatives revenues for 2007 will be close to €3.5