In recent weeks a number of senior bankers have joined agency brokers in London. Until now, agency broking has had a very minor role in the trading of fixed-income cash bonds. Traditional investors – fund managers, life insurers and pensions – used to benefit from dealers’ willingness to act as principal, deploying significant capital to offer liquidity to clients, but that model appears to be broken for now.
Guy Cornelius, Iain Baillie and Tony Main have joined Evolution Securities, Christopher Street Capital and Hoare Capital respectively. Cornelius is a veteran of UBS from the Warburg days. He was co-head of European distribution when he left the bank two years ago for a senior sales role at Lehman Brothers. Baillie was a cash bond trader at Salomon Brothers – joining the firm in 1996 and working there until 2002 before joining the dealer-to-client trading platform MarketAxess. Tony Main ran the treasury department at HBOS until 2004. He has subsequently held coverage and structuring roles at Credit Suisse and Dresdner Kleinwort.
"The market is dislocated and banks have issues with both capital and risk appetite," says Baillie. "There is tremendous scope to build a position and relationships with traditional investors with a research focus."