People: Top quant Lipton leaves Bank of America after 10 years

Return to academia for derivatives pricing expert

Alexander Lipton: departs Bank of America

Alexander Lipton, New York-based quantitative solutions executive at Bank of America, left the US bank on May 27.

Lipton confirmed his departure in an email to Risk.net, saying he was pursuing other interests.

A veteran quant, Lipton was the first person to be named Risk's Quant of the year in 2000. After a career in academia, he went into finance in 1997, joining Bankers Trust and working as a senior quantitative analyst.

After holding a variety of senior positions at other firms, including Credit Suisse and Chicago-based hedge fund Citadel, he was recruited by Merrill Lynch in 2006 as London-based global head of credit analytics. When the US broker-dealer merged with Bank of America in 2009, Lipton was named co-head of the bank's quantitative group, before being promoted to quantitative solutions executive in 2013.

Lipton's interests include derivatives pricing, valuation adjustments and regulatory capital. Outside of finance, Lipton has published research on hydrodynamics, magnetohydrodynamics and astrophysics, and is also a collector of military binoculars.

Lipton will continue his academic career with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

Bank of America declined to comment.

 

Isaac Chang is set to join hedge fund AQR Capital Management as co-head of global trading.

Chang left New York-based trading firm KCG in April, where he served as global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities.

AQR is rebuilding its trading unit following the loss of its former global head of trading, Hitesh Mittal, last year. Mittal was fired in August after the US Securities and Exchange Commission accused his former employer, Investment Technology Group (ITG), of improper trading practices. Mittal was head of liquidity management at the US broker between 2008 and 2011.

ITG paid $20.3 million in fines to settle the case.

Brian Hurst, a principal and portfolio manager at AQR, took over as head of trading following Mittal's departure. Hurst and Chang will now serve as co-heads of global trading at AQR. Chang will be based in AQR's headquarters in Greenwich, Connecticut.

 

JP Morgan has promoted its London-based chief financial officer of global markets, David Hudson, to global head of markets execution.

The position is a newly created role and will include assessing emerging trends, technologies, electronic platforms and potential partnerships.

Hudson has worked at JP Morgan for 12 years and has held a variety of senior roles in equities and fixed income. He was appointed to his previous role as chief financial officer of global markets in 2013. The bank has not yet announced a replacement for Hudson's former position.

Hudson will report to Daniel Pinto, the chief executive of JP Morgan's corporate and investment bank. He started his new role on May 5 and remains based in London.

 

Citi appointed Murray Roos and Dan Keegan as its new co-heads of global equities on May 9.

Roos and Keegan replace former global head of equities Derek Bandeen. Bandeen is understood to be leaving the US bank in June.

Roos originally joined Citi as London-based global head of equity and prime finance sales. Prior to that, he spent eight years at Deutsche Bank, most recently as global co-head of prime finance and co-head of European equities.

Keegan joined Citi with its 2007 acquisition of Automated Trading Desk, a South Carolina-based electronic trader, where he was executive vice-president for institutional equities. He previously served as Citi's head of equities Americas in New York.

In the new roles, Roos and Keegan will remain in London and New York, respectively. Both report to Paco Ybarra, Citi's head of global markets.

 

Former senior Barclays rates trader Michael Yarian has joined HSBC as head of fixed income for the Americas, a spokesperson for the bank has confirmed.

Yarian previously served as head of rates and local markets trading for the Americas and Europe at Barclays. He had worked at the UK bank for 18 years and served in a variety of senior positions before leaving in January. Yarian headed the bank's global markets division in Japan from 2009 to 2011 and was co-head of US rates trading from 2006 to 2009. He was also a board member of the Futures Industry Association between 2012 and 2014.

Yarian began his new role at HSBC on May 9. He is based in New York and reports jointly to Gregory Pierce, head of global markets for the Americas, and Elie El Hayek, global head of fixed income.

In a separate move, HSBC's global head of trading Franck Lacour has become head of equities for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Lacour, who is based in London, has replaced David Long, who retired last year. He began his new role on May 10 and reports to Patrick George, global head of equities, and Niall Cameron, head of global markets for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

In addition to his new role, Lacour will continue to serve as global head of trading, a role he has held since joining HSBC in 2010. He previously worked at Barclays, where he was head of Europe and Asia derivatives.

 

Ashley Alder, chief executive of the Securities & Futures Commission of Hong Kong, was named as chair of the board of the Madrid-based International Organization of Securities Commissions (Iosco) on May 12.

Alder, who previously served as vice-chair, succeeds Greg Medcraft, chairman of the Australian Securities & Investments Commission. Medcraft had served in the role since 2013. His tenure featured work by Iosco in areas such as cyber crime, benchmarks, cross-border regulation and central counterparties for over-the-counter derivatives.

Meanwhile, Jean-Paul Servais, chairman of the Financial Services and Markets Authority of Belgium, was chosen to replace Alder as vice-chair of the Iosco board.