Crédit Suisse London Hires Bankers' O'Reilly; Adds Six Salespeople In London, Singapore

Crédit Suisse has hired Bankers Trust's New York FX chief, David O'Reilly, to head spot foreign exchange trading in London and coordinate its international spot trading organisation, according to London treasury director Sadeq Sayeed. The appointment is part of a larger effort to beef up its global foreign exchange operations, which includes six new hires in treasury sales, he says.

Crédit Suisse Group last week released a balance sheet for the first quarter and an indication of first quarter results. Despite a "muted" first-quarter performance, results in foreign exchange and precious metals were "satisfactory" says the bank's report, although securities trading continued to suffer. Global treasury coordinator Tobias Guldimann says he cannot comment further on the quarterly results.

However, Guldimann points out that CS, which topped FX Week's Top 30 table of FX earnings for 1994 (FXW, April 24), beating out its Swiss rivals and long-time market-leader Citibank, rose to that position because of expansion in its FX business over the past few years, not just because of acquisitions.

He says that the bank would have been number one in the table even if FXW had used the 1994 results for Crédit Suisse Group alone (which were not available by press time) instead of those for CS Holdings, which include FX income from the CS First Boston subsidiary. FX income for CS Group in 1994 was Sfr800 million, which translates to $611 million at the December, 1994 rate, above that for number-two Swiss Bank Corp. which posted FX gains of $596 million for the year.

The appointment of O'Reilly, who has been with Bankers Trust for nine years and previously ran its London FX operation, will continue the bank's efforts to raise its market profile and the quality of service it is able to offer clients, says Sayeed.

"This key addition will uplift Crédit Suisse's execution and risk-taking capabilities and market presence," he says. Sayeed says the job is a new one at CS, with "much greater scope" than the chief dealer position vacated by Paul Tew earlier this year who left to join Standard Chartered (FXW, February 13 ), and includes not only responsibility for London spot trading, but also coordination of the bank's spot operations in New York and Singapore. O'Reilly and forwards chief Bruno Gall report to Sayeed.

Sayeed says that the CS treasury organisation now incorporates an especially close relationship between the three centres, with himself and New York treasurer Moez Jamal temporarily supervising the relatively new Singapore trading operation, which is now the main treasury centre for the Far East. CS recently hired Stephen Moir from Citibank in Singapore as its new Singapore treasurer.

O'Reilly will be coordinating the efforts of Thomas Plaut, who was transferred to Singapore from New York in February to act as regional FX trading manager (FXW, March 27), and of Bob Cortright, head of spot FX trading in New York. Cortright joined CS in January from First Chicago Asset Management (FXW, February 13), says Sayeed.

Similarly, London treasury sales head Tim Potter, who joined the bank earlier this year from Lehman Brothers in London (FXW, February 27), and New York sales head Jorge Rodriguez also have temporary oversight of the Singapore sales effort, says Potter. He says CS has just hired Sue Johannessen from Lehman Brothers in London as its new head of corporate sales in Singapore.

Johnannessen, who starts on 19 June, covered Scandinavia for Lehman and was set to transfer to Singapore to back up Potter, who himself was scheduled to become Lehman's sales chief in the region before he left to join CS, he says. "Sue will help to greatly enhance our regional marketing in Asia and further strengthen the coverage of corporate customers from Singapore," says Sayeed.

According to Potter, the bank has also moved to boost the treasury sales effort in London with five new hires. "We're looking to widen the scope of the franchise, which has been quite limited in London," says Potter. He says CS's customer base in London has chiefly been central banks -- attracted by its AA+ U.S. rating and its AAA rating from IBCA -- and corporates, with relatively few asset managers and other institutional clients.

In addition to widening its corporate base, Potter says CS wants to add more fund managers, insurance companies and banks to its client list, including international fund managers based in the U.S. that trade into the London market. "Credit rating is increasingly important in the foreign exchange business," says Potter. "It's the right thing to market to asset managers now."

Potter has hired Anne Sangster from BZW, where she was a senior sales dealer with responsibility for marketing to institutions, to head its U.K./European fund sales effort, he says. Sangster, who was previously with CS First Boston in London, also has experience on the buy side, says Potter.

Adam Sorab has joined from J. Henry Schroder Wagg in London to head U.K. corporate sales, he says. Sorab, who held a similar position at Schroders, has experience with structured medium-term currency instruments, says Potter, and knowledge of FX options.

"Our policy is to have one, integrated sales force that can deal with all treasury products," says Potter, explaining that CS does not have specialised options salespeople. However, the bank has hired Daniel Hayes from Morgan Grenfell in London as its options product manager for the London sales team, he says.

Hayes will handle some clients that make heavy use of options and act as a support and "technical resource" for the London sales force with regard to options, says Potter. "He will suggest hedging strategies and help in presentations," he says.

Two other salespeople have also recently joined the bank: Gavin Vaughan, from Kleinwort Benson in London, comes as a senior salesperson in money markets. And Kieran Salter jumped from Lehman Brothers in London to oversee sales to Middle East clients (FXW, May 1).