US broker-dealer firm BTIG has appointed a London-based team as part of its global fixed income expansion. The new group will focus on emerging markets, and will complement the existing US team.
The addition of the London branch is the first stage of BTIG's global rollout of its fixed income group, launched in February 2009. The team will be led locally by emerging markets specialist Darren Reiss, and will also include Russell Scott, Cornelia Colonius and Alpesh Lad. They will all report to Alex May, global head of emerging markets.
Scott and Lad join from UBS, where they both held executive director positions, Reiss from Knight Libertas, where he was director on the fixed income sales desk, while Colonius joins from HSBC, where she was a director in emerging market sales and spot trader at HSBC Brazil. Reiss joins BTIG as managing director and Scott has been appointed head of CEEMEA trading.
“As emerging markets bonds have continued to see steady inflows in recent months and are expected to perform well over the coming months we wanted to ensure our European based clients had access to a local sales and trading team with the experience needed to navigate these markets,” said Jon Bass, head of global fixed income at BTIG.
The latest set of hires follows the expansion of BTIG's London sales trading team in February 2010 with four new appointments, along with a series of other appointments to European and Australian sales trading teams in November and December last year.
“Darren's team will complement our efforts in the US while bolstering our growing commitment to the CEEMEA markets,” commented May. “Darren, Russell, Cornelia and Alpesh join BTIG with extensive emerging markets fixed income experience from some of the largest institutions in London and bring with them the knowledge and expertise needed to drive our business forward.”