NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Wells Fargo Securities, part of Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC), today announced that it has hired four senior program trading professionals to create a new Program Trading Desk as part of an ongoing enhancement of its Equity Sales and Trading capabilities. The new hires will be based in New York and report to Matt Brown, head of Cash Trading.
The Program Trading Desk will specialize in the trading of equity portfolios leveraging the firm’s electronic platform. The desk helps institutional investors with fund inflows and outflows as well as fund rebalances. Additionally, the group will offer agency execution and also commit capital to provide liquidity to Wells Fargo Securities clients.
These new hires follow the addition of 25 professionals who have joined the Equity Sales and Trading platform over the past 18 months to continue the growth of the platform.
“Assembling this experienced team of program trading experts is the latest in a series of steps we are taking to enhance our equity product capabilities,” said Chris Bartlett, head of Equity Sales and Trading. “Over the past 18 months, we have created a Listed Options business and a customer Corporate Access desk, launched a new alternative trading system called WELX, and continued to expand the capabilities of WATS, our algorithmic trading operation. The growth in our product capabilities allows us to provide greater options to serve our clients’ distribution needs.”
The four new hires are:
- Haresh (Harry) Rana: With 20 years of trading experience, Rana will head the Program Trading desk at Wells Fargo Securities. He joined Wells Fargo in July 2011 from JP Morgan, where he was executive director of the Delta One Trading Group. Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President of Portfolio Trading at Lehman Brothers and Vice President of Portfolio Trading Sales at Barclays de Zoete Wedd. He began his career in 1991 at Baring Securities. He has a B.S. in Biochemistry from the State University of New York, Stony Brook.
- Michael M. Lee: Before joining Wells Fargo Securities as a Director and Trader in July 2011, Lee was an executive director in the Delta One Trading Group at JP Morgan where he traded program trading risk and index arbitrage. From 1999 to 2005, he worked in Program Trading at Lehman Brothers. He began his career in 1996 as a Financial Analyst at Goldman Sachs, for whom he worked in New York and Hong Kong. He has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
- Chris Johnson: Johnson will join Wells Fargo Securities as a Director and head of Program Trading Sales in early August from Weeden & Co., where he was a Partner in the Program Trading Group. Prior to that, he was a Director in the Program Trading Group at Merrill Lynch, where he spent seven years, and Vice President of Program Trading at Bank of America. He has a B.A. in Business, with a concentration in Finance, from the College of Mount Saint Vincent.
- Kevin Kennedy: Kennedy will join Wells Fargo Securities as a Director in the Program Trading Sales group at the end of August from Deutsche Bank, where he was Director of Global Portfolio Trading. From 2008 to 2010, he was Vice President of Global Portfolio Trading at Goldman Sachs. Prior to that, he worked in Program Trading at Banc of America Securities and was an Institutional Broker at SGI. He began his career at Waterhouse Securities in New York and received a B.A. in History from the State University of New York, Albany.
About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) is a nationwide, diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.2 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through more than 9,000 stores, 12,000 ATMs, the Internet (wellsfargo.com and wachovia.com), and other distribution channels across North America and internationally. With approximately 280,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in America. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 19 on Fortune’s 2010 rankings of America’s largest corporations. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy all our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially.
Wells Fargo Securities is the trade name for certain capital markets and investment banking services of Wells Fargo & Company and its subsidiaries, including Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, member FINRA and SIPC, and Wells Fargo Bank, National Association.