Morgan Stanley re-hires 21-year fixed income veteran to schmooze biggest clients

A 21-year veteran of Morgan Stanley has rejoined the investment bank to focus on some of its biggest clients in the bank’s sales and trading division after a 10-year stint working on the buy-side.

Olga Basirov, who left Morgan Stanley in 2005 when she was a managing director and head of distribution for fixed income products, has just been hired into its senior relationship management team – a select group of senior sales and trading professionals that deals only with the bank’s biggest clients.

Basirov first joined Morgan Stanley in 1984, and remained for 21 years before leaving in 2005 to take up consulting roles in hedge funds.

Most recently, she was brought into help set up Ovington Capital Management, the G-7 rates hedge fund led by Curtis Adams, who previously headed up Mizuho’s diversified trading group – the prop trading desk specialising in fixed income arbitrage. Adams lifted out a team of prop traders from the bank to help launch the hedge fund.

Basirov’s appointment comes at a time when, of course, Morgan Stanley is slashing its fixed income division by up to 25% and cutting up to 1,200 jobs. As we reported, the job cuts have extended to senior employees who only recently joined the organisation. Meanwhile, it’s FX analytics team, base metals trading and commodities division are most at risk currently.

Senior exits include Isabel Mahony, co-head of investment grade trading, Kay Haigh, global head of emerging markets, Oliver Jerome, a managing director and head of emerging markets FX in Europe, Adam Clary, head of European credit sales to real money investors, Thomas Moore, head of desk research for investment-grade and high-yield credit, and Kevin Edwards, an investment grade corporates trader.

Big banks are now trying to get more business out of their larger, core clients, and Basirov’s recruitment is reflective of this trend.

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