GETCO Executives Dominate Knight Takeover
Traders Magazine Online News, February 21, 2013
Executives from the Global Electronic Trading Company will take on most of the top posts at the merged company that will result when GETCO Holding Company completes its takeover of Knight Capital Group.
As disclosed in December, the combined firm will be headed by Daniel Coleman, the chief executive of Chicago-based GETCO. Knight’s chief executive, Thomas M. Joyce, will become executive chairman of the board and Knight’s chief operating officer, Steven Bisgay, will become chief financial officer of the combined company.
Bloomberg News photoBut, by a two-to-one ratio, the top ranks will largely be filled by GETCO executives, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission:
• Jerry Dark – Chief Human Resources Officer (from GETCO)
• John DiBacco – Global Head of Equities Trading (GETCO)
• Albert Maasland – Head of Global Execution Services and Platforms (Knight)
• Darren Mast – Chief Operating Officer; Interim Head of Fixed Income, Currencies & Commodities (GETCO)
• John McCarthy – General Counsel (GETCO)
• Farid Moslehi – Head of Asia (GETCO)
• Nick Ogurtsov – Chief Risk Officer (GETCO)
• Jon Ross – Chief Technology Officer (GETCO)
• Robert Smith – Head of Europe (GETCO)
• George Sohos – Global Head of Client Market Making (Knight)
"The senior management team that we are announcing today possesses the expertise to successfully integrate our two organizations, develop new and innovative products and, most importantly, serve the needs of our clients across multiple asset classes and time zones," Coleman said, in a statement.
GETCO was one of several firms to swoop in last August to rescue Knight, after the firm lost more than $450 million in an ill-fated 45-minute episode where it flooded markets with erroneous orders.
The fiasco was attributed to a “large software bug’’ installed in anticipationg of the launch that morning of a new Retail Liquidity Program on the New York Stock Exchange.
GETCO later bested Virtu Financial, in bidding to take over the once rock-solid electronic market maker.
In announcing the management changes, GETCO and Knight, however, reaffirmed their commitment to the use of high-speed technology in all their trading-related activities.
The two firms tolds investors that their intent was to become “the leading technology-driven financial services firm, providing multi-asset class trading solutions to our clients around the world’’ and that they would, as a combined company, be “technology-leveraged in everything that we do.’’
Dibacco, who will oversee equities trading, is the banker who supervised Kweku Adoboli at UBS at the time the rogue trader engaged in what the Swiss investment bank said was unauthorized trading. The incident cost UBS $2.3 billion.
For more information on related topics, visit the following channels:
