Instinet, the Nomura-owned execution-focused brokerage, has hired Karan Wadhera as head of regional sales trading. He will be based in Hong Kong.
Wadhera joins Instinet from another entity within the Nomura Group. He used to be head of trading for Nomura India, and before then, he worked at Goldman Sachs in San Francisco and New York.
Instinet Hong Kong has also hired Joe Hancock as a director on the Instinet regional sales trading team. He joins the firm from Mirae Asset Securities.
These two positions are newly created in the Hong Kong Instinet office. Karan Wadhera will report to Shaun Bramham, Instinet’s Asia Pacific CEO. Joe Hancock will report directly to Wadhera.
“Their network of relationships will allow us to respond to an increase in demand from clients,” said Bramham. “As we hopefully continue to gain market share in the region, we expect to make further additions to our sales trading team over the coming months.”
Since an announcement last September, Nomura has been working to consolidate its cash, program and electronic trading businesses outside of Japan in Instinet, while Nomura will continue to offer services including flow and structured derivatives, delta one, convertibles, prime services, futures and options and equity capital markets and syndication services.
“Since all the teams have bedded down post the migration to Instinet, there has been significant interest from clients for services on the high touch side. Instinet has primarily been known for its strength in electronic trading so Karan Wadhera and Joe Hancock will be focused on meeting this new demand and helping to educate clients on what the platform can now offer,” a Hong Kong-based Nomura spokeswoman said.