Three Chicago-based sales traders have left Knight Capital Group to take positions at BTIG, the institutional brokerage.
Making the switch to BTIG are Peter Murphy, Matt Biety, and Matt Krebs. Murphy began his 13-year career at Knight in market making and later moved into an institutional sales position. Biety spent six years at Knight as a sales trader. Before that he traded equities at Jefferies. Krebs spent over 7 years at Knight.
The departures are part of a spate of defections at Knight in recent months from both its institutional brokerage and broker-dealer division.
On the institutional side, Joe Wald, responsible for the big broker’s Knight Direct trading platform, departed in September, and recently joined foreign exchange broker Gain Capital. Cornelius McGinity, who spent 15 years in institutional sales at Knight, joined Gabelli & Co. as president in November. Sales traders Michael Ingrassia and Carlos Jimenez joined Macquarie Capital last October.
On the wholesaling, or broker-dealer, side of the business, a clutch of traders and sales executives left Knight for Citadel Securities last fall. Mark Stehli, John Kane, Michael Donofrio, Noel Dalzell, David Streltsoff, and Chuck Lugay all made the switch in the final months of 2012. The market making group at Citadel is headed up by ex-Knight executive Jamil Nazarali. (For more see http://www.tradersmagazine.com/issues/25_344/citadel-otc-hires-desk-110507-1.html)
A Knight spokesperson confirmed the departures, but would not comment further. Most of the departures occurred after Knight’s near-death experience on August 1, but before the announcement of GETCO’s plan to takeover of Knight on December 19.
Knight survived a near-death experience on August 1, when it flooded markets with erroneous orders that cost it more than $450 million. GETCO was one of seven firms that infused capital in Knight that month.-
As for BTIG, the new hires double the number of equities traders working out of its Chicago office to six, according to the company. BTIG has been steadily expanding since its formation in 2005, and now employs 162 sales traders and 56 traders worldwide. The largest of its nine U.S. offices is in New York, where it employs 60 sales traders and 33 traders.
