Barclays hired a Citi MD for its U.S. prime brokerage business

Prime brokerage hiring is hot on Wall Street this year. As we reported in August, Canadian banks have been particularly eager to bolster their U.S. pb presence, as has Cantor under Anshu Jain. In fact, Cantor pinched Jonathan Yalmokas, a former Bank of America Merrill Lynch prime brokerage executive who was supposed to be joining RBC, but had a late change of heart.  

Now it looks like Barclays is jumping on the wagon too. The British bank just hired a veteran banker to its U.S. prime brokerage platform.

Robert Simon joined Barclays' New York office this month as an MD in prime brokerage sales. Simon previously spent 13 years at Citi, initially in program trading and latterly as a managing director in equity platform sales. Before that, he was head of program trading at J.P. Morgan.

With program trading (AKA portfolio trading) jobs under pressure but broader electronic execution and prime brokerage jobs thriving, Simon has deftly moved into ever-hotter lines of business. Both Citi and J.P. Morgan have indicated their intentions of growing their prime brokerage businesses this year.

In August, Barclays hired Stephen Dainton, a former Credit Suisse banker, to lead its equities business out of London. Dainton is due to arrive at Barclays in the next few months. Barclays inherited its U.S. prime brokerage business from Lehman Brothers in 2008. The global head of prime brokerage sales at the bank is Thomas Luglio, who came with Lehman and is likely to be Simon's boss.

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Photo credit: Barclay's Bank Tower NYC NY by dog97209 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.