Shawn Matthews Comments: Cantor Fitzgerald Adds Five To Boost Sales In Emerging Markets
May 14, 2012, Bloomberg News
Cantor Fitzgerald LP is hiring staff in New York and Miami as it looks to expand equity and fixed-income sales and trading in emerging markets.
The financial services firm hired Diego Baez as its New York-based managing director of Latin American equities, Shawn P. Matthews, chief executive officer of Cantor, said in an interview May 11. Baez joins newly hired staff at Cantor including Directors of Latin American Sales George Medina and Jose Berges, Director of Brazilian Sales Mauro Orefice and Managing Director of Emerging Markets Francisco Romero.
Cantor, one of 21 primary dealers authorized to trade U.S. government securities with the Federal Reserve of New York, is expanding amid record debt sales from emerging-market countries and companies. Matthews said New York-based Cantor expects to be in five to 10 new countries in the coming years as it acquires or expands broker-dealers in developing nations.
“Emerging markets and international businesses are clear growth areas for our firm,” Matthews said from New York. “We are aggressively expanding into multiple regions and feel that the opportunity to gain market share is significant. We look to add a fair amount of people in Latin America.”
Baez, former head of electronic trading at Sao Paulo-based Terra Futuros SA, will be responsible for building strategic joint ventures. Medina, previously at S.J. Levinson & Sons, will be based in New York and report to the global head of equities, Jarred Kessler.
Miami Office
Berges, formerly of Mexico City-based Interacciones Casa de Bolsa SA, and Orefice, previously at InterBolsa Securities LLC, will be based in Miami and also report to Kessler. Romero, formerly of Macquarie Group Ltd., will be based in Miami and is joining Charles Cortellesi and Erich Bauer-Rowe, who arrived last month as co-heads of the debt capital markets' emerging-markets division from Jefferies Group Inc.
Emerging-market governments and companies have sold more than $150 billion of dollar-denominated debt this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The International Monetary Fund forecasts growth in developing countries at 5.7 percent this year, compared with 1.4 percent in advanced economies.
Emerging-market equity funds have registered inflows of $19 billion this year through May 9, while bond funds have seen inflows of $14.9 billion, according to data from research firm EPFR Global.
“In Latin America, this is our first foray,” Matthews said. “We'll talk about acquisitions in Europe in the next couple months to get us to different interesting places.”
