On The Move

Edward Craig became head of U.S. cash equities trading at Jefferies & Company. Craig, a managing director, replaces Ron Hammer, who has left the firm. Craig joined Jefferies last year to head trading of the broker-dealer’s consumer, retail and gaming sector. In his new role, the 12-year industry veteran oversees all exchange-listed, Nasdaq, and Bulletin Board cash trading. Craig retains his sector responsibilities. His promotion comes as Jefferies reorganizes its equities trading department. Last year, the firm organized the department along sector lines. In recent months Jefferies has brought in outside traders to increase its capital commitment. Ross Stevens, co-head of equities at Jefferies, said capital is necessary because agency is a “commodity,” and the buyside requires “help in difficult situations.”


Joseph Benanti joined Rosenblatt Securities as a broker on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Prior to joining Rosenblatt, Benanti was running his own NYSE floor brokerage. The trader has been a member of the NYSE since 1982 and has worked as a floor broker for Paine Webber and Robertson Stephens.


Richard Herr joined Investment Technology Group as a senior vice president in charge of strategic and business development. This is a new position. Herr will be responsible for evaluating strategic partnerships and acquisitions. Herr was previously a securities analyst at Keefe Bruyette & Woods covering brokers, exchanges and trade-execution firms.


John Tulli, formerly of Miletus Trading, recently joined Credit Suisse’s AES sales team. Tulli, who covers the Northeast, reports to Rupert Fennelly, an AES director in New York. Michael Healy, formerly of Bloomberg Tradebook, also joined AES sales. Healy, who covers the Midwest, reports to Rob Maher, an AES director based in San Francisco.


Credit Suisse beefed up its electronic trading group in derivatives sales with two new hires. Andrew Yao, formerly of Portware, joined AES Futures as a vice president. Brent Kochuba, formerly of Banc of America, joined AES Options. Both report to Manny Santayana, managing director and head of AES sales.


John Pastorelli rejoined Morgan Stanley’s trading desk as head of the industrial sector. Pastorelli joins from Deutsche Bank, where he spent two years trading industrial stocks. Prior to that, he was at Morgan Stanley for more than 10 years, where he also traded industrial stocks.


Richard Chmiel, previously director of sales for LatentZero in New York, recently joined Skyler Technology, a Walnut Creek, Calif.-based vendor offering event stream processing technology. Chmiel, who runs the company’s New York office, is a vice president in sales.


Stephens Inc. recently opened two new offices and hired four sales trading professionals. The Little Rock-based broker opened a New York and a Chicago office. Sales traders Brian Halloran, previously a managing director with Bear Stearns, and Nilsa Vazquez, previously a director at Ryan Beck & Co., will work in New York. William Van Buren, a former director at KeyBanc Capital Markets, runs the new Chicago office. Jerald Pawloski, previously a senior sales trader at Summer Research Partners, joins the firm’s existing office in Boston.


Jefferies made a slew of hires:

On the sales trading front, the firm brought in Leon “Tres” Green III and Stephen Sibilia. Green was formerly with Banc of America Securities. Sibilia was with Sanford Bernstein and Goldman Sachs. Each have more than a decade of institutional equity sales experience.

On the market making front, the firm hired Kenneth Byrne and Matthew Pymm as co-heads of health-care sector trading.

Also, it is hiring Mark Di Benedetto and Peter McQuade. Both were most recently at Credit Suisse and have more than 20 years of trading experience between them. Di Benedetto and McQuade will focus on utilities trading and metals and mining trading, respectively.

Also at Jefferies, Craig Peckham, most recently a senior equity research analyst covering business services and special situations, will join the trading department as a desk analyst and head of special situations trading strategy. In this new role, Peckham will establish client-centric, special-situations strategies that include post-reorganization, risk arbitrage, spin-offs and distressed equities. The analyst’s initial focus will be in support of the firm’s leading institutional Bulletin Board business.


James Kearney joined the National Stock Exchange as a senior vice president in charge of business development and client relations. Kearney joins the NSX following a 19-year career with the Vanguard Group.


Alfred Eskandar was recently named CEO of Miletus Trading, an algorithmic trading shop that Liquidnet acquired in March. Eskandar continues on as director of corporate strategy at Liquidnet, a buyside-only institutional block crossing network.


Rob Cofer and Steve Menendez joined agency broker Pulse Trading, which opened a new office in St. Louis. Cofer and Menendez, both previously with Flagstone Securities, have worked together at various St. Louis-based firms over the past 12 years.


Michael Philipps joined ThinkEquity Partners as a sales trader and partner. Philipps will be based in the California firm’s New York office. Philipps has 20 years of experience in the institutional brokerage business. Prior to joining ThinkEquity, Philipps was head of institutional brokerage at Ladenburg Thalmann. Before that, he was a senior managing director at Gerard Klauer for five years.


David A. Briggs, senior vice president and global head of equity trading, retired earlier this month from Federated Investors in Pittsburgh. Briggs, 52, started out as a trading systems analyst before moving to Federated’s trading desk in 1986. Other than remaining active on the board at SIFMA’s institutional educational committee, Briggs says he has no immediate plans. Diane Startari is the new head of the desk.


Richard “Rick” Waks recently joined West Coast-based firm Heflin & Co. as a partner. Waks, who previously headed institutional equity trading for both JPMorgan and Schroders in Los Angeles, came to Heflin & Co. from Imperial Capital. There, he headed institutional equities.


Susan Hines, CFA, joined Pipeline Trading Systems as director of sales at Pipeline’s new Chicago office. Hines, previously a vice president in trading with Loop Capital Markets, runs the Midwest branch and reports to Michael Hayes.


Benjamin Brown recently joined NorthPoint Trading Partners as the head of the firm’s West Coast prime brokerage group. Brown was most recently head trader for Calimar Capital in San Diego.


Asher “Ushie” Koenig, formerly of KV Execution Services, moved upstairs last month to Bear Stearns agency-only desk, Bear XO. Koenig, who ran KV’s NYSE floor-brokerage operation, joins as a senior sales trader and senior managing director. Michael O’Reilly, also previously with KV, joins Bear XO as a sales trader and associate director. KV’s floor operation closed last month after Bear Stearns bought out the remaining partners in Bear Wagner, an NYSE specialist operation in which Bear Stearns was majority owner. KV was Bear Wagner’s direct access floor-brokerage unit.