US
Last time we mentioned the big trader hiring that’s happening at Cantor Fitzgerald, we were lambasted by people pointing out that Cantor is an interdealer broker and therefore only hires brokerage professionals. This appears to be a little out of date.
If Cantor only hires brokerage professionals, why has it added “over 100 fixed income and equity sales and trading professionals” over the past year?
And why has it just hired 12 new people in the fixed income, ABS and structured credit markets in the UK, Italy, Ireland and Germany, including an ex-Lehman hedge fund sales professional, and various former investment bankers?
Since spinning off BGC Partners in 2008, Cantor is primarily a bond trader.
Last year, it set out to become a player in mid-tier ECM and DCM, and pushed into leveraged finance.
As we noted a few weeks’ ago, it’s now going big in derivatives, and wants to hire around 100 people to trade equity linked securities, primarily in London. Its most recent 12 hires are also apparently all part of a push to build, a “dedicated Structured Credit trading and distribution team covering all European asset classes.”
Lukewarm after all?
However, while Cantor is undoubtedly hiring, it’s degree of hotness is thrown into question by last week’s press release.
Although this claims that Cantor has added 12 “new people”, only 11 are named. Of those, a quick perusal of the FSA register suggests that at least four joined in September last year, suggesting they’re not exactly brand new hires after all.
Moreover, some of them appear to have been out of the market for quite a few months before joining Cantor – Vanessa Bradford started in September 2009, but appears to have left Lehman in June 2008, for example; Dacil Acosta joined Cantor in January this year, but left Mitsubishi UFJ in December 2008.
None of this suggests that Cantor is finding it as easy to attract banking talent as its chief executive, who speaks of a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to hire from investment banks, might like.
One recruiter who works with brokers like Cantor says investment bank employees really are more receptive to working for inter-dealing broking firms, however. This is apparently mostly due to the format of their pay.
“Brokers are much more open to paying percentage packages. They will also consider paying bonuses on a quarterly basis,” he claims.
What Cantor is trying to do is similar to Heritage, Cohen, Knight Cap etc… build a broker-dealer by hiring disgruntled employess at IB’s. BGC is Cantor’s inter-dealer arm….
They have met with varying degrees of success and some have capital/balance sheet whilst others are pure agency.
This was a great trade last year and in 2008 and yes you do have transparent comp structures.
However, long term, not all are going to survive. Will Cantor? Probably but debatable if it will become a mid sized pure IB such as Jeffries.
Here we go again… These low-quality bankers that have been out of the market! As long as articles churn out such nonsense, all qualified bankers looking for jobs will continue to be treated with prejudice by potential employers. And while this happens, these people that can and should be employed are not paying any taxes to support the highly leveraged governments. Get real – 2009 was a pretty dead year market-wise. If there is one myth that should have been broken during this crisis, it would be that it is NOT the most untalented only that lose their jobs, and it is NOT only the best that stay in employment.
Cantor is crushing it int he States. On par with jefferies if not ahead on tradng side. Outside US, Cantors brand value is low, and the confusion with BGC (which was spun out in 2004) is high, as the even this article and these commentators can’t separate the two.
Seems like the ABS press release was timed to coincide with the ABS conference.
Whether Cantor can break in to Europe is the big question; if not , it will remain a US bond powerhouse and attractive take over candidate by European bank some day….or Australian ;-)
>>”These low-quality bankers that have been out of the market!”
I didn’t see any reference to low-quality bankers in the “article”. Hey, the market has been, and will continue to be, crappy for some time to come especially for senior level people. Face it, the party’s over and anyone still employed should be grateful for the work, as it sure beats most of the alternatives.
@ tbonds: “None of this suggests that Cantor is finding it as easy to attract banking talent”. Obviously if you are out of the market, you are not part of that big banking talent currently employed. No one is talking about any partying and people did not lose their jobs because they were having fun before that.