Credit Suisse trading head swaps banking for tiny asset manager run by former colleagues

The head of a major trading unit at Credit Suisse in London has just signed up to a small investment manager started by the bank’s former CEO of Asia-Pacific, Osama Abbasi.

Benjamin Leung, the head of EMEA macro investor products trading at Credit Suisse, left last month and has just landed at TriSpan LLP as a partner and deputy chief investment officer.

Leung worked at Credit Suisse for over 12 years, having joined as a director within structured credit trading in 2005 from General Re Financial Products in New York. He started his last position in 2015. Before this, he was head of commodity index options and exotics trading.

Trispan is a small company that has flown under the radar since Abbasi started it in 2015. The former head of equities for Asia-Pacific, he was promoted to CEO of Credit Suisse’s regional operation in 2010, but left five years later in one of the many management reshuffles at the investment bank. Karim Lari, the former deputy head of quantitative strategies at Credit Suisse is the firm’s chief operating officer and chief financial officer.

It has offices in London, New York and Dubai, but just 11 employees registered with the Financial Conduct Authority. However, it has attracted some big names.

Gregor Lanz, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs in London, joined as a partner last year, as did Said Freiha, the former head of MENA family offices at Deutsche Bank, while Mufid Shawwa, head of Credit Suisse’s fund-linked and equity derivatives coverage for MENA signed up in 2015.

Trispan’s latest accounts, to 31 December 2016, show that it made a £2.3m loss. It paid its eight members £592.3k, the accounts suggest.

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