Goldman Sachs traders fleeing to hedge funds

The flow of traders from investment banks towards the perceived freedom and sanctuary of a hedge fund continues, with Goldman Sachs losing three traders in the past few weeks.

Mark Deniston, a managing director and head of sterling rate swaps trading at Goldman Sachs, who left the bank in February, has reemerged at Brevan Howard, according to filings on the FSA register. Yohann Freoa, an index options trader at the bank, left earlier this month to join BlueCrest Capital Management and Julia Krivchenko departed Goldman for a role at boutique operation Liquidity Finance as director of emerging market sales. David George, an executive director in futures and options execution and sales trading, who worked at the bank for nearly 16 years, has also moved on, according to FSA filings.

These moves are part of a broader trend of traders in investment banks moving to the buy side in search of new opportunities, particularly in troubled areas of fixed income like rates and currencies. One fixed income headhunter in London, who declined to be named, said that in recent months it has moved from a "steady flow" to a "real drain of talent" from investment banks.

Prominent hedge funds like Brevan Howard and BlueCrest have been happy to capitalise on the desire of bank employees to move. At Brevan Howard, Neilan Govender, a former senior global currencies trader at Credit Suisse, joined in March along with Richard Oliver, head of short-term interest rates trading at Morgan Stanley in London.

Meanwhile, BlueCrest, which has hired 30 new traders for its New York office, has also been recruiting in London. This month, it hired an entire team from Nomura’s principal investments team - Ardy Hashemi, Alex Codrington, Russell Hartley, Basile Rivoire, Sam Joab und Dan Cohen – following the appointment of Christian Dalban, who headed the division, in March.