The Australian division of institutional broker-dealer BTIG has made four senior hires to its sales trading operations in Sydney and Melbourne.
Darin Lester joins from Macquarie Group, where he spent most of his time in the derivative sales division of the equity markets group in Sydney. Lester has also held positions at Macquarie’s offices in Hong Kong and New York.
David McConnell, previously director of Australian equity sales trading at UBS Investment Bank Australia, will also join BTIG. He has also worked at UBS Securities in Japan, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein Securities in Hong Kong and Japan and ING-Barings Securities in Singapore, Bangkok and Hong Kong.
Dustin Westblade joins the BTIG team from ITG Australia, where he was most recently a senior sales trader, managing accounts for domestic and overseas fund managers.
Finally, Trevor Harrison joins from Citigroup Global Markets, where he was vice president of sales and capital introduction, responsible for the sales of prime broker services to the Australian market.
“Our business model, which we believe is relatively new to Australia, has positioned us well for growth and has allowed us to take advantage of market opportunities,” said Kevin Chessen, head of BTIG’s international effort. “The new hires in Australia complement our recent expansions in Singapore and Hong Kong, and further position us to be a dominant player in the region.”
The new additions take BTIG’s Australian team to 11. All will report to Paul Brech, CEO of BTIG Australia. Lester, McConnell and Harrison will be based in Sydney, while Westblade will be based in Melbourne.