Deutsche Bank adds another senior trader to its ‘most interesting’ desk in New York
Despite enduring a painfully difficult 2018, Deutsche Bank still knows where its bread is buttered. The German lender just added another senior credit trader from Nomura in New York in an effort to prop up its best performing business. Bret Corrigan started as a director in high-yield credit trading earlier this month.
The hire comes just a couple months after Deutsche Bank added former Cantor Fitzgerald trader Drew Meaney as a managing director within it high-yield trading division in New York. The bank also brought on Olivier Gazzolo, former global head of credit trading at Société Générale, as a managing director for investment grade (IG) credit trading in London last month.
While Deutsche Bank’s fixed income revenues fell 17% globally in 2018, its credit trading business ranked first globally in 2018, an impressive stat considering the turmoil and turnover that’s occurring across its securities division. DB is known to be particularly strong in distressed and high-yield trading, and it just deepened it bench.
A Deutsche Bank insider told us earlier this month that credit trading at Deutsche Bank is the "most interesting place to be on the Street," because it encourages an entrepreneurial approach where one can make massive trades. The bank did much to strengthen its team 18 months ago when it hired Paul Huchro, a veteran of the US credit trading team at Goldman Sachs, as global head of investment grade credit trading. As part of the move, Huchro also began heading Deutsche Bank’s high yield credit trading business in the U.S. and Europe.
While cutting costs generally, Deutsche Bank has been selectively adding traders, though it seems to be “juniorizing” in equities. In the presentation accompanying the bank's fourth quarter results, CEO Christian Sewing said Deutsche planned “targeted hiring in fixed income” in 2019. At least one of those targets appears to be high-yield credit trading.
Prior to his two years at Nomura, Corrigan spent the previous decade working at Citi and a convertible bond and high-yield credit trader. Finra records confirm his arrival at Deutsche Bank.
