Société Générale, Westpac, Merrill

Top management at Société Générale has been reshuffled in the wake of the rogue trades that cost the bank €5 billion in losses this month.

Christophe Mianné, who was promoted to head of global markets last month, has now returned to head the global equities and derivatives division. His former co-head of global equities and derivatives, Luc Francois, took sole charge of the division after Mianné's promotion, but has now left the bank.

Olivier Khayat, formerly head of capital raising and financing, has moved to succeed Marc Breillout as head of fixed income, currencies and commodities. Breillout is also understood to have left the bank, but SG had not confirmed this at the time of writing.

Khayat's co-head of capital raising and financing, Jean-Luc Parer, previously global head of debt capital markets, will now take sole charge of the division.

Quentin Smith has shown up at Westpac in London as a director in foreign exchange sales to financial institutions. Smith officially started at the bank on January 2 and reports to Keith McCann, head of institutional sales. Smith previously worked at Dresdner Kleinwort, where he was on the institutional sales desk (FX Week, February 5, 2007).

Rumours circulating the market suggest Merrill Lynch is looking to hire Peter Gerhard, Goldman Sachs' former head of foreign exchange. Gerhard left Goldman Sachs in January 2006, after 23 years with the bank, to launch his first hedge fund with new firm East Avenue Capital Partners (FX Week, November 13, 2006).

Paul Murphy has been hired at Barclays Capital in a newly created position as managing director within global distribution. He joins the bank in Singapore having run his own private investment company. At BarCap, he will focus on the bank's key clients in the Asia-Pacific region. Murphy reports to Kevin Burke, Barclays' head of distribution in Asia-Pacific, and Neil Cummins, managing director of global distribution.

Meanwhile, in London, Tom Robinson and Myles Bullock in foreign exchange e-commerce sales have left the bank. It is thought they will not be replaced. BarCap declined to comment.

Electronic communications network LavaFX has hired Peggy Reid from rival ECN HotspotFX. Neither LavaFX nor HotspotFX could reply to a request for details by press time.

Christian Hains has joined ANZ in London as a trader in Asian emerging market currencies. Hains had been with JP Morgan as an associate in global, and currencies and commodities trading (FX Week, October 15, 2007).

The Japanese foreign exchange team at RBS has been restructured.

Ivan Ferraroni has been appointed head of FX trading and sales, widening the remit of his previous role as London-based head of FX sales, where he focused on clients in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

John Shen-Nagakura, head of FX sales, joined RBS in November 2007. He has held various senior sales roles covering FX and derivatives products at Shinsei Securities, as well as at Citibank in New York, London and Tokyo.

RBS has appointed Aiden Hopfner as the head of global fixed-income sales, Japan. Hopfner previously covered FX sales for RBS institutional clients across greater continental Europe. It has also appointed Luke Waddington as head of prime solutions, Asia-Pacific. He was previously the bank's head of FX trading and sales.

Pricing and risk management technology vendor SuperDerivatives has hired Russel Levi as senior vice-president of global sales and support. Levi joins the company after more than 19 years with Bloomberg, where he was most recently head of electronic trading, front-office systems and messaging. Levi starts at SuperDeriavtives in mid-February in London, and will report to David Gershon, president and chief executive of the company.

Peter Sheridan, head of Goldman Sachs' algorithmic trading in Europe, is relocating to New York. His exact role is unclear and the bank declined to comment.