Trading places

Calyon has expanded its strategy capabilities, signing a eurozone economist and two analysts in London this month. The French bank hired senior eurozone economist Stuart Bennett to start this week. Bennett joins from Informa Global Markets, where he was head of European economics in London. Bennett will report to Mitul Kotecha, global head of foreign exchange research at Calyon London.

Calyon has also recruited two other analysts this month: FX options strategist Simon Smollett and metals analyst Michael Widmer. Smollett joins from IDEA Global and Widmer from Macquarie Bank. Both will report to Kotecha, who said the hires come in response to research Calyon has done regarding changing customer requirements. "The European economist is a key role given Calyon's focus and coverage of the European economies, and the growing demand from our trading and sales team to provide focused research on the eurozone economy." The FX options strategist is a new position to support Calyon's growth in forex options and demands from clients for more sophisticated trading ideas and hedging strategies, Kotecha added.

Trading technology vendor TradingScreen has hired Jonathan Cooper from Bloomberg as its global head of FX sales.

Cooper joins the vendor after 14 years at Bloomberg, where he most recently worked as European head of FX sales and liquidity. In that role he helped oversee the introduction of e-FX products to the company's customer base. Previously, he has also worked as European head of emerging markets.

ANZ London has hired FX and fixed-income strategist David Croy, who starts today (October 16). Croy will cover the northern hemisphere, working on ANZ's European and North American accounts for trading and strategy ideas in Australia and New Zealand. He moves from Westpac, where he worked in interest rate strategy. At ANZ Croy will report to Sue Rasmussen, head of FX sales and Simon Hughes, head of capital markets with a reporting line to Warren Hogan, head of markets research. ANZ London's FX sales team also reports to Hughes, who joined ANZ in May from Marshall Warburton, where he was a risk management principal.

Michel Péretié, head of Bear Stearns International and formerly head of FX at BNP Paribas, has been made chief executive for Europe at the US bank. He has hired a management team of six, including Antoine Dijkstra from merchant bank NIB Capital and Dominique Favillier from ABN Amro.

The management changes follow Bear's expansion of its FX-aligned precious metals team last month (FX Week, September 18). The bank made a series of hires in London and Hong Kong to build the team.

Paul Duncombe, State Street Global Advisors' UK managing director and ex-head of currency management, has left during a major restructure of the bank's management team. The bank said Duncombe is leaving to pursue other opportunities.

Kanesh Lakhani will replace Duncombe in the managing director role. A new position has been created for Mark Lazberger, who will be president of SSgA's international business. The organisational changes are aimed at advancing sales and client infrastructure in Europe and are due to growth in SSgA's non-US business, according to the bank.

John Studzinski, former co-head of HSBC's Corporate, Investment Banking and Markets (CIBM) starts this week at Blackstone, a London-based private investment and advisory firm. At HSBC Studzinski was responsible for FX, corporate banking, corporate finance, debt and equity and equity capital markets origination. Studzinski's primary role at Blackstone will be to oversee and develop the advisory side of the business. Studzinski was involved in building HSBC's investment banking franchise. His co-head of CIBM, Stuart Gulliver, took over as sole head in May.

The board of Multibank portal FXall has elected Bank of America's Matt Frymier, managing director of strategic investment group as chair of its board following Cyril Cottu's move out of foreign exchange (FX Week, October 2). Frymier will be chair of a board that comprises four bank representatives, Henry Feinberg and Bob Trudeau from venture capitalist company TCV (which bought a minority stake in the business earlier in the year), and four representatives from FXall's shareholder banks.