Asia

Agency broker Instinet has appointed Glenn Lesko, previously head of its US-based international trading group, as the new CEO of its Asian operations.

Advanced Execution Services (AES), the electronic trading division of global investment bank Credit Suisse, has added a block trading feature to its Crossfinder internal crossing network in Australia.

Nomura Securities Malaysia, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based investment bank Nomura, has been granted a special stock-broking license by the Securities Commission of Malaysia, which will enable the firm to trade cash equities in the country.

Ned Phillips, CEO of Asian dark pool BlocSec, has acknowledged that plans to bring sell-side liquidity on stream are taking longer than expected, but he denied that the crossing network had stopped taking on new clients.

Global investment bank Credit Suisse has appointed a new head of capital services in Asia-Pacific in an attempt to reconnect with its hedge fund client base in the region.

Lee Porter, formerly head of member services in Asia for Liquidnet, has replaced David Klinger as head of the buy-side crossing network’s Asian operations.

BNP Paribas has pushed back the Hong Kong launch of its proprietary dark pool, BNP Paribas Internal eXchange (BIX), to Q4 this year because of a longer-than-expected approval process, according to Quentin Limouzi, the bank’s execution product head for Asia and Japan.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has signalled its intention to grow its Asian and Australian equities businesses with a raft of new hires across electronic trading, sales and research.

ITG Group, the agency broker and financial technology firm, has appointed Neil McCann as director of sales trading in Hong Kong and James Levy as senior sales trader in Australia.

New York-based broker Auerbach Grayson has teamed up with Reliance Equities International Private Limited, a stockbroking subsidiary of Indian financial services firm Reliance Capital, to offer US institutional investors greater access to India’s capital markets.