Senior high yield trader joins firm with a reputation for paying in cash

A senior trader has joined the U.S.-based firm Stifel which is famous for paying in cash.

Diego Degli Esposti, a former Nomura and Lehman executive director and ex-high yield trader at Mizuho International, joined Stifel Financial Corporation last month as a managing director in London.

Stifel has been in the UK for at least 16 years. However, given its diminutive size, it falls outside the Financial Conduct’s Authority’s edicts on pay. It's, therefore, free to pay large bonuses that are entirely comprised of cash.

The firm has been growing its markets and investment banking presence in London over the past two years.

In IBD it brought on board Sascha Kroissenbrunner as head of European industrials from Houlihan Lokey and Michael Hart from EY as an MD on its industrials team in January and April last year respectively. It also hired Emanuel Brefin, the former head of trading in supranational, sub-sovereign and agency debt at Barclays, and Paul Man, ex-senior SSA trader at Societe Generale in September 2017. Earlier this January, Nicholas Moore, a former senior vice president at Jefferies, joined Stifel Financial as a managing director in its healthcare investment banking team.

Esposti, who has more than two decades of experience, began his career as a senior bond trader in San Paolo Bank in 1995 and switched to Banca Intesa four and a half years later. In 2004, he joined Lehman Brothers and served as a vice president until the first-half of 2008. Later that year, he joined Calyon as the head of high yield trading, Europe only to leave it a year and a half later for Nomura where he served as an executive director. Esposti joined Mizuho International after leaving Nomura in 2011 and remained there for six and a half years until November 2017, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Esposito's arrival at Stifel comes amidst movement in the high yield market as smaller banks bulk up. Credit Agricole hired ING's head of high yield earlier this month. HSBC's head of high yield resigned last month and has yet to resurface.

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