Could you leave investment banking for the blood and thunder of a competitive hedge fund? And could you resist the lure of the bulge bracket if the new venture doesn’t go to plan?
For Neilan Govender, who joined Brevan Howard as a senior portfolio manager in April, the answer appears to be ‘no’. Govender was a senior currency trader at Credit Suisse for just nine months (from July 2012 to March 2013) before he left for a new role at the hedge fund earlier this year. However, he re-joined the Swiss bank last week.
He is a now a trader in Credit Suisse’s FX team, reporting to Simon Horwood, co-head of trading for global foreign exchange and short term interest rate trading. A spokesperson for Credit Suisse confirmed the appointment.
In his first stint at the bank, Govender joined Credit Suisse as a senior global currency trader from Barclays, where he was head of emerging markets FX cash and options trading, in July 2012. He had been at Barclays since 2008 and previously worked at both Deutsche Bank and Citigroup.
However, he joined Brevan Howard in April during a period of expansion for the firm, which hired 38 investment professionals globally throughout 2012. However, more recently, the hedge fund has been laying off senior staff following a period of underperformance.
Brevan Howard has also been increasingly moving its traders into its Geneva operation. Having initially been set up as a satellite office three years ago, it’s now become the prime location for its European front office staff, and just a handful of people are left in London.
It now has 80 FCA approved staff, down from 94 at the beginning of 2013.
Credit Suisse recently reshuffled the top ranks within its FX team. In September, Todd Sandoz, head of global foreign exchange and short term interest rate trading (stirt) and was replaced by David Tait. However, the bank then merged its FX, rates and commodities teams, creating a new Global Macro Products group led by Tait and Jon Kinol, its New York-based head of rates. 100 roles were eliminated in its fixed income team.