Guggenheim Partners, a money management firm associated with the family that operates the Guggenheim museums, has hired Ken Savio to build out an equities desk for the firm’s brokerage unit, Guggenheim Capital Markets.
Savio, until the collapse of Bear Stearns, was the firm’s co-head of global trading and sales trading. He spent a year at the agency brokerage BTIG until moving to Guggenheim recently.
At Guggenheim, Savio joins Alan Schwartz, formerly chief executive of Bear Stearns, who was hired in June to transform the firm’s small sales and trading operation into a full-blown investment bank.
Guggenheim employs 800 people. About 80 work for the brokerage unit, primarily in fixed income sales and trading. The group is headed by Ron Iervolino.
Savio and Schwartz aren’t the only ex-Bear Stearns employees to join Guggenheim recently. In June, Guggenheim hired two bankers formerly with the ill-fated firm to cover community banks in Dallas.
Savio spent 20 years at Bear Stearns in a variety of leadership positions. During the 1990s, he ran Bear’s convertibles group. Between 2000 and 2005, he was head of U.S. trading and sales trading. In 2005, he assumed responsibility for Bear’s global trading effort.
Savio did not return phone calls by press time.
