Ex-Brevan Howard partner and Goldman MD to launch FX brokerage

James Fauset, a former FX portfolio manager and strategist at Brevan Howard who left in January, is set to launch his own FX brokerage.

Fauset has just started as head of FX agency business at COEX Partners, an FX agency and execution platform that has 40 people across London, New York and Chicago. He says that he’ll be launching a subsidiary business, ‘COEX Partners FX,’ late in the summer.

Fauset worked at Brevan Howard for nearly five years before leaving earlier this year. He was previously a managing director and head of FX hedge fund sales at Goldman Sachs.

Front office headcount at Brevan Howard has declined from a peak of 89 in August last year to 73 in May 2016. A number of senior money managers have left in recent months after a difficult year at the hedge fund.

Most recently, Adrian Hilton, a partner and portfolio manager on its Absolute Return Fund Plus, departed. Asif Ghiawadwala, who also focused on FX, left in January. Meanwhile, partner Ben Melkman’s Argentina fund has reportedly been liquidated, but he is still currently employed at the firm.

Working for an FX brokerage firm is becoming a thing. Pete Eggleston and Oliver Jerome – Morgan Stanley MDs who accepted voluntary redundancy last year – launched FX execution analysis firm BestX in March. Zar Amrolia, the former co-head of FICC at Deutsche Bank joined recently-established ‘market maker’ XTX Markets in September. The firm is now ranked fourth in FX market share globally.

Photo: Maren Winter/iStock/Thinkstock