The TRADE 51 | Page 12

PEOPLE MOVES The former head of European trading at State Street Global Advisors, Dale Brooksbank, has joined the Abu Dhabi Investment Authori- ty (ADIA). Brooksbank - who departed State Street in July last year - joined the authority in October 2016 as head of equities trad- ing in ADIA’s central dealing department. Citi has hired Thomas Regazzi as its new head of prime finance for North America, accord- ing to an internal memo, as it continues to build out its equities team. Regazzi joins from UBS where he was previously head of syn- thetic equity trading for the Americas, serv- ing almost seven years at the Swiss bank. Former global head of trading at AXA Invest- ment Management has joined MarketAxess as head of Europe and Asia. Christophe Roupie has been tasked with driving MarketAxess’ global expansion and securing new business and product development opportunities. The former head of Barclays derivatives clearing business has resurfaced at ICE, joining its interest rate business. Ray Kahn joined the Atlanta-based exchange group on 3 January, a spokesperson for ICE confirmed, following a hiatus of six months. Chief executive officer at Schroders, Peter Harri- son, has been appointed as chair of the Invest- ment Association. It was also announced Andrew Formica, chief executive officer of Henderson Group, has been appointed as deputy chair. Legal and General Investment Management’s global head of trading, Stephen Grady, has left the asset manager, marking the latest high profile trader to depart from a buy-side firm. Responsi- bility for LGIM’s global trading operations will be split between senior traders in London and Chica- go, a spokesperson confirmed, and will continue to report to Simon Wilkinson, head of LDI funds. 12 TheTrade Spring 2017 BOND TRADING Number of bond trading platforms available reaches 128 The explosion of new fixed income trad- ing venues shows no signs of letting up. As of January this year there are now 128 trading plat- forms available for fixed income trading, suggesting the explosion of new bond venues is yet to slow down. Between November 2016 and January this year, 14 new fixed income trading platforms joined the market, according to a recent blog post by John Greenan, a front office trading technology consultant. The asset class is overcrowded with trading venues as regulation forces the structure of fixed income across instruments away from a centralised model – mostly due to bank balance sheet constraints - towards a decentralised model. Market participants have said the explosion of ven- ues is causing fragmentation and a ‘liquidity drought’ in global bond markets. Large buy-side firms and asset managers have the opportunity to act as price makers rather than price takers, according to a quarterly report published by the International Capital Market Association (ICMA). The report said the bond market has seen a decrease in ratio turnover, despite an increase in market size and overall turnover against a backdrop of bond issu- ance, as issuers take advantage of low interest rates globally.