Frankfurt-based asset manager Union Investment has completed the integration of its trading teams under one multi-asset desk as part of a strategic review.
By combining the equities and derivatives desk with the fixed income and FX teams, Union’s head of trading Christoph Hock believes the launch of the new consolidated multi-asset trading desk will enable Union to “stay ahead in today’s constantly evolving trading world”.
Hock has been pushing for the migration from a pure execution desk to a service- and solutions desk since he arrived in April 2014, telling The Trade that “one team, one dream” was his philosophy in an interview in Q4 2014.
His plan for the future of Union Investment's trading desk was to begin seeing the portfolio managers as “internal clients” and ensure they get a best-in-class service and content from the trading team as a whole. He aimed to remove the traditional barriers between the trading desk and portfolio management.
“Delivering trading-related multi-asset content and market intelligence from our trading desk, gives our portfolio managers an additional element to their focus on single stock selection and their fundamental bottom-up approach. The top-down view and the allocation element are both integral parts of our investment process. Multi-asset trading now plays a much bigger role.”
Hock and his team will report to head of equities fund management, Benjardin Gärtner, who joined Union Investment in May 2015, and to the head of fixed income fund management Frank Engels.