Credit Lyonnais Restructures Sales In NY Under New Forex Manager

Credit Lyonnais is reorganizing its distribution activities in New York and has hired Garry Bale as the new head of FX sales to lead the expansion on the institutional sales side, says Allan Rosenberg, CL's New York-based treasury head.

Bale joins from Deutsche Morgan Grenfell in New York where he held a senior sales position. He was one of the original team of ex-Citibankers that joined DMG along with Michael deSa two years ago (FXW, April 25, 1994). He replaces Donna Segal, who has left the bank. CL has had several sales sides departures in recent weeks, including Sandra Eng and Jackie Bianco, says Rosenberg.

"The reason for Garry's hire was to increase our focus on institutional investors," says Rosenberg. "Previously, we had a very significant focus on our corporate clients, with only a minor focus on the institutional investor side."

"While we'll continue servicing our corporate clients, specifically those corporate clients that are clients of our commercial banking activities, we will now re-direct additional resources to our institutional investor activities," he adds.

Rosenberg says the bank is not de-emphasizing corporate relationships, but will continue to do so "even more aggressively" than before; however, that side of the business will not be expanded, whereas the institutional investor side will be "significantly" expanded. He adds that Bale is likely to bring in extra sales people to support the effort.

The changes affect only the sales side, so the trading end will remain focused on dollar/Paris, mark/Paris and dollar/mark. "Clearly, as a French bank, we want to bring our clients access to the French markets, so we'll continue to emphasize that approach," he says, adding that the bank's desire globally is to bolster its foreign exchange business.

Additionally, CL has decided to globalize its FX options business from New York as part of the re-organization. The global FX options activity will be run and managed from the US under a global head that has yet to be named, covering New York, Paris and Singapore.

Rosenberg says the options business will cover the gamut of both plain vanilla and exotic options and should be in place within the next 60 days.

"What we're doing in foreign exchange is consistent with what we've already done in our fixed-income business, which is a significant focus on institutional investors. The decision to focus on this client sector stems from the predominance of such clients in daily market activities, he adds. "Institutional investors are at the forefront of daily market activities and clearly move the markets," he says. "So it's important that our coverage of those investors is as aggressive and responsive as possible."

CL has about 18 FX traders, sales and options dealers in New York. Of that, Rosenberg says five will be in options. He adds that sales in options will be bolstered as well.

In London, FX manager David Bishop says he recently hired a senior sales dealer for the institutional desk. Mike Clark joined last month from HSBC Markets in London. Regarding the hire, Bishop says: "It's part of the process of Credit Lyonnais looking to add quality people to our foreign exchange abilities."