Credit Suisse's global head of FX leaving one year after the evisceration of his team
John Estrada hung in there. When Credit Suisse's FX salespeople and traders were being cut in November last year, John Estrada kept holding on. When colleagues moved to Morgan Stanley, he did not. When senior Credit Suisse FX people were culled again in July, John stayed.
But now John Estrada is leaving Credit Suisse. He's having some leaving drinks in two weeks. It's the end of an era.
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For anyone unfamiliar with who John Estrada actually is, he was the global head of eFX trading at Credit Suisse, then the global head of macro, then the global co-head of FX and then - latterly - the global head of FX. John joined from BNP Paribas in September 2011. It's been a long run.
Estrada was one of the survivors. Gregory Armon Jones, managing partner at Armon Jones Partners, estimates that at least 30 Credit Suisse FX and cross markets professionals have left for other banks or hedge funds, including Aaron Tighe, the former global head of emerging markets institutional sales in New York, who went to Santander and Archie Brixton, an FX trader who went to Morgan Stanley in June. "UBS already have an established FX business and there weren't many seats for people to fill there. A lot of Credit Suisse talent found options in Q2 and Q3 of this year", Armon Jones says.
Why didn't Estrada leave sooner? The delay might have something to do with the fact that Estrada was officially promoted to global head of FX at Credit Suisse in February this year, and wanted to make the most of his title. He didn't respond to a request to comment for this article.
Although he's leaving, some ex-Credit Suisse FX people do have seats at UBS. Shahab Jalinoos, Credit Suisse's global head of macro trading strategy in the US, joined UBS in September. Andrew Hopson, a London FX trader is also there.
UBS's FX business isn't having a good end to the year. Revenues in fixed income trading declined 37% year-on-year at UBS in Q3 and the bank said this was primarily because rates and FX revenues fell.
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