Paul Battams was named head of international equity trading at BlackRock following 23 years with the firm. He was most recently head of EMEA equity trading, overseeing a team of 14 traders covering the scope of equities and equity derivatives execution for the entirety of BlackRock’s investment teams. Prior to joining BlackRock as equity derivative trader in 2009, Battams was an equity trader at Barclays Global Investors for 11 years.

Following this, BlackRock appointed Nick Craze to take over from Battams as head of the EMEA equity trading desk.  Craze has been on the desk for more than 15 years and prior to this promotion oversaw the ‘model and derivatives group’ on the BlackRock EMEA equity desk since 2016. He will now manage the entire desk, made up of 14 traders, having previously managed a team of six. Craze joined the asset manager back in 2006, initially working in asset allocation and equity investments before becoming an equity trader.

Tourmaline Partners appointed Peter Murden as managing director – equity trading, as it seeks to further enhance its market reach, as revealed by The TRADE. In his new position, effective as of this month, Murden will be London-based and take on a client-facing role. Before the move to Tourmaline, Murden was a managing director at RBC Capital Markets and prior to this, spent 18 years at Redburn, most recently as a partner in equity trading, before departing following the Rothschild takeover in 2022. Murden has almost 30 years’ experience in the industry having worked several trading roles across the sell-side having begun his career at JP Morgan, then Flemings, back in 1994. His equity trading experience covers Asia, Europe, North America, and the UK.

Stephan Leithner has been appointed as the chief executive officer for Deutsche Börse, taking on the role from 1 October 2024. Leithner will take over the position from Theodor Weimer who has held the chief executive job since 2018. The two will operate as co-CEOs until the end of the year. Leithner has been a member of the executive board of Deutsche Börse AG since 2018, responsible for pre- & post-trading. Deutsche Borse said a decision on his succession will be made in due course. Weimer took over the chief executive role in 2018, moving over from his CEO position at HypoVereinsbank UniCredit Bank. During that time, he has overseen the acquisition of SimCorp and Axioma, among other initiatives such as a 10-year partnership with Google Cloud.

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In his new position, effective as of this month, Murden will be London-based and take on a client-facing role. His key focus will also be on bolstering the team of senior equity trading professionals at the firm.

Speaking to The TRADE, Aaron Hantman, chief executive of Tourmaline, said: “In response to ongoing and increasing demand for liquidity, scale and operational efficiency, along with our proven ability to partner with buy-side dealing desks – we choose to add Pete. He has well-known and deep experience in the navigation and execution of block liquidity.”

Before the move to Tourmaline, Murden was a managing director at RBC Capital Markets. Prior to this, he spent 18 years at Redburn, most recently as a partner in equity trading, before departing following the Rothschild takeover in 2022.

Murden has almost 30 years’ experience in the industry having worked several trading roles across the sell-side having begun his career at JP Morgan, then Flemings, back in 1994. His equity trading experience covers Asia, Europe, North America, and the UK.

Murden explained to The TRADE that his decision to join Tourmaline was spurred by changing market conditions exacerbating the need for alternate trading solutions: “My decision to join Tourmaline was based on a recognition that market structure changes have made it more difficult to deliver liquidity. Alternate trading solutions, particularly Tourmaline’s model, offer a compelling and exciting way to do this.

“I feel I can offer more to the end user at Tourmaline and look forward to helping clients achieve their execution goals in this evolving paradigm,” he added. 

This most recent appointment follows that of four senior trading hires across 2023 by Tourmaline to help further strengthen the firm’s global trading capabilities.

Last June, the firm expanded its global trading team with two key hires in London and Sydney – Gareth Pickard and James Gleeson. In addition, former Liquidnet co-head of EMEA trading James Kirk joined as a managing director in July, with Simon Bradley and James Williams, joining shortly after. 

Tourmaline’s London office is now 12 strong and includes 10 traders across equities and derivatives, as well as two OPS personnel.

Read more: Tourmaline Partners makes change to US head trader role as part of growth plans

Hantman told The TRADE that Murden’s appointment “furthers [our] footprint as a unique player in the equity trading community at an important time in the region.”

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Liquidnet’s head of primary markets, Jonathan Gray, is set to leave the firm after nearly a decade. Gray initially joined Liquidnet in 2014 as head of fixed income sales for EMEA, helping build the firm’s buy-side client base in fixed income. Gray joined Liquidnet from Morgan Stanley, where he served as a managing director, responsible for convertible bond sales, trading risk and research. Before Morgan Stanley, Gray was a director and a co-founding partner of electronic crossing network start-up, MarketTouch, funded by GNI and Old Mutual. Elsewhere in his career, Gray served as a director at Credit Suisse, where he traded equities and European and Asian convertible bonds.

Gavin Collins joined Trumid in a newly created role to head up its dealer-to-client Attributed Trading protocol. Collins has two decades of experience in the capital markets industry and was previously Neptune’s chief technology and product officer, having joined back in 2021. Before that he held senior technology and product management roles at: UBS, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, NatWest, and Citi. In this new role, Collins will oversee the development and expansion of Attributed Trading (AT).

Tourmaline Partners released its US head trader, Alex Goodman, in the midst of its growth plans as it aims to achieve the aggressive goal of matching the same level of growth seen in Europe and Asia in its largest business unit, North America. Goodman joined Tourmaline back in April 2020 as managing director and prior to this position was head of US cash trading at Macquarie Capital. He also previously worked at multiple hedge funds, including Hutchin Hill Capital and Davidson Kemper, in senior equity trading roles.

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Aaron Hantman

In recent times, Tourmaline has experienced significant growth in client acquisition, particularly across Europe and Asia, having added close to 60 new clients.

Read more: Outsourced trading desk Tourmaline gains majority investment

Speaking to Goodman’s departure, Aaron Hantman, chief executive of Tourmaline, told The TRADE: “We see an even healthier sales pipeline right now and want the head trader role in the US to be a more commercially focused role.”

Goodman joined Tourmaline back in April 2020 as managing director and prior to this position was head of US cash trading at Macquarie Capital. 

He also previously worked at multiple hedge funds, including Hutchin Hill Capital and Davidson Kemper, in senior equity trading roles.

“We think highly of Alex and wish him well. He is a terrific trader. Moving forward, the role will have a more commercial element. We have done very well here at home, but I think we can do even more […] Our growth objective is aimed at maintaining the same superior client service and results while also continuing to distance Tourmaline from other players,” Hantman said to The TRADE.

The move follows a swathe of hires by Tourmaline in recent times as it continues its global growth, with various regional appointments.

Last June, Tourmaline Partners expanded its global trading team with two key hires in London and Sydney. Gareth Pickard joined the firm as senior European equities and derivatives trader, based in London, while James Gleeson was appointed managing director, focused on business development as well as trading in the APAC region – based in Sydney. 

Also last year, James Kirk – formerly Liquidnet co-head of EMEA trading– joined as managing director in July, with two other seasoned financial markets executives, Simon Bradley and James Williams, joining as managing directors shortly after to help further strengthen the firm’s global trading capabilities. 

Four of the professionals are London-based and hold long track records of success and leadership across global equities trading. 

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With the additions of Simon Bradley, James Williams and James Kirk the firm is set to continue its expansion across Europe. The three incoming professionals are London-based and hold long track records of success and leadership across global equities trading.

Speaking to The TRADE, Aaron Hantman, chief executive and partner at Tourmaline, said: “All three hires are meeting a growing demand in Europe in general. It could be said that Europe was slow to adopt our version of supplemental trading. Today, that’s not the case. It’s built up a lot of momentum in the last three years which we think will continue.

“The focus is on growing the team in a well-suited manner to maintain the delivery service and quality that we want as a firm.”

Bradley will be responsible for building out Tourmaline’s equity derivatives franchise across Europe, The TRADE understands, and is set to leverage his wealth of derivates expertise gleaned over 30 years in the market as part of this new role. He will specifically focus on value-added idea generation, price discovery, and trade execution. 

Bradley was most recently a partner at Mariana Capital and prior to that was head of CSC equity options at GFI Group. He has also previously held positions at Citi, Fimat, and MF Global (as Europe head of equity derivatives).

Hantman told The TRADE: “Simon brings deep listed derivatives trading expertise into Europe, which is a product that we have not focused on so far, however we’ve seen more demand in that space across clients that are trading in the region and we think it’s time to offer that on our platform. Simon has both the experience and the expertise in this product class.”

Bradley joins two other recently announced appointments: James Kirk, formerly co-head of trading (EMEA) at Liquidnet and James Williams, formerly an institutional sales trader at BTIG.

In his new role, Williams will be responsible for covering clients on global cash equities execution, building on his two decades of experience in the area. Hantman highlighted Williams’ expertise in institutional equity sales trading specifically, asserting that this knowledge “will be critical to growing Tourmaline’s global trading capabilities.”

Most recently, Williams spent 14 years as an institutional European equity sales trader at BTIG, working across Europe and the US for various hedge funds and institutions. He has also previously worked for Goldman Sachs.

In July, The TRADE reported that James Kirk had joined the business as managing director, following an eight-year stint at Liquidnet, most recently as co-head of EMEA trading.

Read more – Liquidnet’s co-head of EMEA trading departs

At the time his departure was announced, Kirk said that he was hugely motivated to move onto this new challenge.

Speaking to The TRADE, Hantman said: “We’ve always been impressed by James and felt like he would be extremely additive to our team, specifically in an equity position which is traditional for us. He’s an excellent addition to our experienced team […] someone who knows the client base that’s trading within Europe and what their needs are.”

Kirk is set to oversee and enhance Tourmaline’s services in support of asset managers globally as part of his new role, leveraging his experience running programme and electronic/high-touch hybrid trading desks. Prior to this move, he worked in various execution specialist roles at ConvergEx Group and BTIG. 

 Tourmaline has around 350 institutional clients, which includes hedge funds and asset managers of all sizes and provides tailor-made trading solutions and best-execution expertise. 

“I think what’s very unique about Tourmaline is that we pioneered this version of supplemental trading where we’re working with clients that do have traders. Sometimes it’s a single trader, other times it can be a whole team of global sophisticated traders as well and today the business is pretty evenly split in those type of solutions,” said Hantman.

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RBC’s co-head of European electronic sales and trading, Bianca Gould, is set to leave the bank after almost three years, as part of streamlining measures. According to sources familiar with the matter, it has been communicated to clients that due to streamlining, certain roles have been eliminated. Gould’s next role is not yet confirmed. Gould joined RBC Capital Markets in October 2020 to co-lead its European low touch sales and trading business alongside Chris Parker, who has been in the role since 2011. She has extensive experience in the algorithmic and electronic sales and trading space, after previously spending 16 years at Redburn where she held various roles within the European equities sales trading team, most recently as head of algorithmic trading.

James Kirk joined independent outsourced trading services provider Tourmaline Partners as managing director. Earlier this month he announced his departure from Liquidnet where he most recently served as co-head of trading for EMEA for two years, having originally joined the business in 2015. Previously, Kirk served as an equity trader at brokerage firm BTIG and has also held senior positions at ConvergEx Group as vice president, and RBS as European head of agency portfolio trading.

CME Group’s fixed income platform BrokerTec appointed Sara Carter as an executive director and global head of repo. Carter joined BrokerTec from Morgan Stanley, where she most recently served as executive director for client financing sales. Elsewhere in her 15-year tenure at Morgan Stanley, Carter held various senior fixed income sales and trading positions, including serving as vice president of fixed income rates sales.  

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Earlier this month he announced his departure from Liquidnet where he most recently served as co-head of trading for EMEA for two years, having originally joined the business in 2015.

Read more – Liquidnet’s co-head of EMEA trading departs

London-based Kirk was previously an equity trader at brokerage firm BTIG and has also held senior positions at ConvergEx Group as vice president, and RBS as European head of agency portfolio trading.

Speaking at the time his departure was announced, Kirk said that he was hugely motivated to move onto this new challenge.

Earlier this year, Rowley Aird, former managing director at Tourmaline Partners, joined Raymond James’ global equity trading division – helping to set up global trading from Europe, reporting to global heads in the US.

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Before joining ASX, she served as managing director at UBS for close to four years and prior to that, held various senior positions at JP Morgan, where she spent nearly 14 years. Dominic Stevens will continue to serve as CEO until 31 July 2022 and following Lofthouse’s promotion, he will continue to advise and assist ASX with its transition until 30 September, after which he intends to retire.

JonesTrading has appointed two new co-heads of prime services to replace current head of the division, Robert Sackett, who is departing for Mirae Asset Management.

Jorge Hendrickson has been appointed as co-head from Opus Fund Services, where he had been the firm’s chief revenue officer for almost 10 years. Alongside him, Mark McGoldrick joins from Cowen, where he most recently served as director of its outsourced trading and prime services group for almost seven years.

LCH’s head of equities, Alex Krunic, has left the clearing house after just over three years in the role. During his tenure at LCH, Krunic was responsible for driving EquityClear’s strategy and managing relationships with clearing members and trading venues.  

For LCH, while not a like-for-like replacement, some of Krunic’s responsibilities will fall to Ivan Gilmore, who was named head of cash equities for LCH, Ltd and SA at the end of last year.

Nordic asset manager DNB Asset Management has appointed Eivind Aukrust as its new head of index linked strategies. He joins from Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), where he spent the last six and a half years.

Aukrust’s most recent role as a portfolio manager at NBIM was his second stint with the firm after serving as a trader there for over six years from 2008-2014. In the interim, he founded Auka Capital and spent a year as a hedge fund manager.

Trading solutions provider Tourmaline Partners has made two key hires in London and Sydney, as part of its expansion of global trading experts. Gareth Pickard joins the firm as senior European equities and derivatives trader, based in London. Meanwhile, James Gleeson comes onboard as a managing director and will focus on business development as well as trading in the APAC region – based in Sydney. The pair bring over 25 years’ experience each to the firm, having previously served at BTIG and Vantage Capital Markets, respectively.

Christian Schalke, DWS Group’s director of equity trading for EMEA, has left the firm after just over 10 years, according to an update on his social media. Before joining DWS, Schalke spent almost 10 years at investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in various roles. Later in his career, he spent two and a half years at Morgan Stanley in derivatives sales and nearly three years at MainFirst Bank as head of derivatives sales.

Elsewhere, European agency broker Kepler Cheuvreux has appointed Bobbie Port as its new head of electronic distribution. Port has been promoted to the position after serving at the firm for the last 11 years, most recently as deputy head of execution sales. Prior to that, Port held the position of senior execution sales for just over nine years.

Before joining Kepler, Port held the position of direct market access (DMA) and algo execution sales at Instinet Europe, and also served as senior sales associate and trade support, equities and fixed income at Nasdaq and BNP Paribas, respectively.

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Gareth Pickard joins the firm as senior European equities and derivatives trader, based in London. Meanwhile, James Gleeson comes onboard as a managing director and will focus on business development as well as trading in the APAC region – based in Sydney.

Pickard will join Tourmaline’s London team of buy-side traders, tasked with delivering best execution of European equities and derivatives to Tourmaline’s global client base.

He brings over 25 years’ experience in financial markets to the role and joins from BTIG, where he served as European head of equity derivatives for the last ten years.

Prior to that, he served as equity and equity derivative sales trader at MF Global.

Similarly, Gleeson brings over 25 years’ experience to Tourmaline, this time in direct pan-Asian trading experience, spanning electronic, high-touch and block trading.

As part of his new role, Gleeson will trade equities as well as listed derivatives, while working closely with the management team focused on development in developed and emerging Asia. Gleeson will also help support Tourmaline’s growing business in Europe and the Americas.

He joins the firm from Vantage Capital Markets, where he served as co-head of Asian equities. Prior to that, he served as head of Asia sales trading for Citigroup, based in Hong Kong.

“As our London office celebrates its tenth anniversary and our Sydney office enters its fifth year of operations, [Pickard and Gleeson’s] deep expertise in electronic trading is a pivotal addition to our industry-leading offering,” said Aaron Hantman, chief executive of Tourmaline.

“With demand increasingly coming from large asset managers, it’s vital that we continue to build our team to bring our clients the best execution and unparalleled service they need to compete and deliver for their own clients.”

These latest appointments follow a string of recent hires by Tourmaline in the last few months. Industry veteran, Brett Fischer, joined the firm from JP Morgan as a managing director in December last year.

Elsewhere, Michael Maloney was appointed as director of Tourmaline’s US operations team, alongside Lavan Guruparan, who joined as associate director of the firm’s APAC operations team.

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