High frequency trading firm's ultimate survivor leaves after 17 years
Financial services can be a pretty turbulent place to work, not least when you work for a firm in the midst of a merger or acquisition. Quant trader Pratik Mathur survived two mergers at the high-frequency trading firm he worked for, but has now left after 17 years.
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Mathur has served as Virtu Financial's global head of options for seven and a half years, joining during the HFT firm's $1.4bn acquisition of KCG Holdings, where he was formerly head of options trading.
During the acquisition, Virtu cut around half of KCG's 1,100 staff and shuttered entire teams like its Global Quantitative Strategies proprietary trading team. Virtu CEO Doug Cifu said at the time that "many of the departed employees worked in redundant cost centers or offices that generated little to no revenue, or even lost money trading." Mathur, presumably then, pulled his weight.
Four years prior to that, KCG was two entities: Getco LLC and Knight Capital. Mathur had joined the former as a graduate quant and spent five years in its earlier incarnation. The KCG merger was allegedly a bit more ugly; employees declared "an open rebellion" in an anonymous letter to KCG's board after the two firms struggled to integrate.
Mathur declined to comment on his next destination, but in a goodbye post on social media, he celebrated "living through every crazy moment in the markets" since he joined Getco amid the 2008 financial crisis. He's now on gardening leave, most likely marveling at the lack of drama.
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