(Bloomberg) -- Citadel Securities is making structural changes to its sales operations, aligning its products across equities and fixed income for clients to mimic the likes of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other Wall Street heavyweights.
The firm created a new Strategic Client Coverage Group, according to a memo to staff seen by Bloomberg. SCCG will be led by Goldman veteran Av Bhavsar, global head of fixed income and cross-asset distribution, and provide “cohesive” insights and product offerings.
“These organizational changes will help us unlock these opportunities and better serve our clients across the entirety of their trading journey — from idea generation to execution on through to trade settlement,” President Jim Esposito wrote Thursday in the memo, whose contents were confirmed by a company representative.
The market maker, founded by billionaire Ken Griffin, is pushing to grow the business as it competes with Wall Street banks such as Goldman and JPMorgan Chase & Co. Like Bhavsar, Esposito joined this year, bringing his experience as co-head of banking and markets at Goldman, which has a similar client group — “One Goldman Sachs” — that was created to increase collaboration within its businesses and provide a more streamlined service to clients.
The firm also hired Nohshad Shah as head of fixed-income sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to the memo. Shah, who will be based in London, previously led EMEA rate sales at Goldman and most recently was head of multi-assets at Marshall Wace in a portfolio-management role. He’ll work with Jordan Cila, head of US fixed income sales, starting next month.
The hiring underscores the firm’s ambition to expand across Europe, where it’s building out its rates business and became a member of the bund issues auction group, allowing it to participate in primary auctions of German debt.
Citadel Securities matches buyers and sellers in the equity, options and fixed-income markets. It generates billions of dollars of revenue using algorithms to capture and profit from tiny differences in prices. The firm serves asset managers, banks, broker-dealers, hedge funds, government agencies and public pensions.
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