BlueCrest, the London-based firm led by former JPMorgan trader Michael Platt, has hired more than 30 people for its New York-based team since 2010, while boosting its holdings by about $12 billion since then, to $36 billion, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be named because the expansion hasn’t been publicly discussed.
Millennium Expansion
The firm added at least three people from Deutsche Bank this year as it seeks to create what its website calls an “investment-bank quality” trading group. Hires included interest-rate derivatives trader William Yearick, mortgage-debt trader John Roach and distressed-credit analyst Matt Siravo, people with knowledge of the matter said at the time.
Last year, BlueCrest hired Eugene Gokhvat from Morgan Stanley and John McNiff, who was co-head of trading in commercial-mortgage securities at Bank of America.
Renee Calabro, a spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank, declined to comment, as did Kerrie McHugh at Bank of America.
Pine River, which hired Steve Kuhn in 2008 from Goldman Sachs to head fixed-income trading, has almost tripled its assets under management in the past 15 months, to $13.5 billion as of April 1 from $5.4 billion in January 2012.
Millennium expanded its staff by 32 percent to 1,250 people in 2012, adding Barclays trader Brian Maggio and Nomura Holdings Inc.’s Markus Weber, while increasing its assets by 25 percent, to $16.9 billion as of Dec. 3 1, regulatory filings show. Some of its hires this year include interest-rates derivatives trader Markus Meister from Deutsche Bank and UBS AG’s Preben Ramm.
Falling Salaries
The New York-based firm, run by Israel “Izzy” Englander, accelerated its expansion into fixed income in October 2008, when it hired Michael Gelband, a former global head of capital markets at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., less than a month after that company collapsed. Millennium Partners LP, the multistrategy fund that the firm uses to invest all of its $18 billion in net assets, formed a Cayman Islands subsidiary in June 2010 called Millennium Fixed Income Ltd.
Tripp Kyle, a spokesman for Millennium, declined to comment about the expansion, as did Patrick Clifford, who represents Pine River in New York, and Ed Orlebar for BlueCrest.