Societe Generale builds cash equities team

Societe Generale has made a slew of appointments to its Asia cash equity team, most recently appointing Craig Harvey as sales trader.

Harvey will be based in London and is responsible for pan-Asia sales trading activity in Europe — a position he held at Mizuho International, where he worked for five years, before joining SG.

Harvey started his career at Robert Fleming and spent 11 years with the British merchant bank before stints at Sumitomo Trust International, Daishin International and Deutsche Bank. He will report to Mark Rice, who is global head of sales trading at SG, and Matthew Perry, who co-heads execution services for Asia.

The appointment follows on the heels of a number of other hires SG has made in cash equities: Gary Leong has joined as a director in the Hong Kong sales trading team from Barclays Capital; Neil McCann, who was earlier at Mirabaud Securities Asia, will also be a director in the same team; John Takeoka, previously at Nomura, has joined the Japan sales trading team; and Kennie Atle Johansen joined the principal trading and facilitation team in Hong Kong as a director, from Octis Asset Management.

Last year, SG formed an alliance with the pan-Asia equity research and sales operation of Japaninvest, which was founded in 2002 and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Ji Asia has analysts based in Tokyo and Hong Kong covering 600 Asian stocks. It also has sales desks in London, New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo. The alliance brings together Ji Asia’s research and sales teams with SG’s established execution capabilities and experienced sales-traders across Tokyo, Hong Kong Seoul, Mumbai and London.

“The combination [of SG and Ji Asia] has resulted in a unique research and execution offering to clients from the bank and Ji Asia as well as a global integrated offering including derivatives across all execution products and worldwide markets,” said SG in a written statement announcing Harvey’s appointment.

Some specialists are predicting that cash equities will be the next area to witness a shake out. A number of investment banks have been hiring aggressively as they seek to build out their cash equities capabilities. US independent investment bank Jefferies, for example, has repeatedly been in the news during the past year as it has poached specialists from rivals up and down the street.

Such bullishness is at odds with the grim mood at CLSA’s investor conference in Hong Kong last month, where the firm’s own experts, Russell Napier and Mike Mayo, only added to the prevailing gloom. If transaction volumes continue to taper off, many investment banks could find it hard to sustain the high cost bases they have built up.