AIG hires ex-Commerzbank options dealers in London

Former Commerzbank foreign exchange options dealers Behnouche Mostachfi and Damian Zihlman have joined AIG Trading in London. Both report to Greenwich-based global head of foreign exchange options and head of forex Donald Lee.

Mostachfi left Commerzbank, where he was a senior foreign exchange options trader in London, at the end of 2002. He transferred to Commerzbank in London from Tokyo, where he was Asian head of FX options, at the beginning of 2002, after Commerzbank shifted its Asian forex trading to Singapore. Prior to this, he held a number of senior vanilla and exotic options trading positions at Deutsche Bank in both Europe and Asia.

Zihlman also left the FX options desk at Commerzbank in London in the past few months, having joined in January last year. He had previously spent seven years at Credit Suisse First Boston, trading vanilla and exotic options at its London and Zurich offices.

Mostachfi and Zihlman’s departures from Commerzbank were part of a string of FX defections from the German bank. Alison Fletcher, head of FX sales in the UK, left Commerzbank in October to join ABN Amro in London. She joined the Dutch bank in January and works in the corporate client risk advisory team.

FX sales dealer Martin Bean left Commerzbank the same month. He has since joined Boston-based bank State Street in London on the real-money FX sales desk.

Commerzbank also remains without a global head of foreign exchange following Edward Voorhees’ departure in April last year. Ricardo Pascoe, head of corporate risk structure is currently temporarily responsible for forex.