Credit Suisse's head of equity derivatives has joined Nomura

Rishabh Bhandari, the former head of structured equity derivatives at Credit Suisse, has joined Nomura’s New York office as a managing director.

Bhandari left Credit Suisse in April after nearly eight years at the bank. He joined the bank as an associate in 2008, but had held the position of head of structured derivatives trading at Credit Suisse since October 2013.

Credit Suisse’s equities business 39% year on year drop in the second quarter, to CHF340m, but conditions had improved since Q1 and its equity derivatives business was cited as a key reason for this.

Bhandari joined Nomura in a similar role in July. Nomura, of course, has generally been pulling back from equities. The Japanese cut 500-600 jobs in London as it closed its cash equities and research division, but was also making cuts in equity derivatives and “streamlining” its U.S. equities team, according to reports at the time.

Prior to joining Credit Suisse, Bhandari spent three years at Lehman Brothers, before the acquisition if its U.S business by Barclays in 2008. He has an MS in Financial Engineering from Columbia University.

There’s been a fair amount of churn in the top ranks of the equity derivatives teams of large banks recently. James Boyle, the New York-based global head of equity derivatives at Citi, left in April to “pursue other opportunities”. In Europe, Imraan Moosa, co-head of equity derivatives trading for EMEA at Citi, left in July last year and has yet to re-emerge in a new role.

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