Winton Capital is hiring. The Oxford-based hedge fund whose CEO resigned last week (for family reasons) reportedly wants to open new offices in in New York, Sydney and Tokyo to add to its existing offices in Zurich, Geneva, London and Oxford. These new offices will need staff, as will Winton’s recently-opened 70,000 square foot London office. Founder and CEO David Harding said Winton wants to recruit 100 new salespeople and researchers. Who will they be? For the moment, Winton’s hiring a lot of programmers. In the past it’s also said that it likes to hire scientists with the ability to formulate a hypothesis based on, “large sets of historic data.” On the other hand, Winton doesn’t like career economists: hardly anyone there has an economics PhD.
Separately, Amit Goyal, the former global head of FICC strategies structuring at UBS, had an allegedly complicated love life. Goyal, who left UBS in September 2012 according to the Financial Conduct Authority Register, tried to have his marriage to a woman he met through an Indian dating website (with whom he has a seven year old daughter) annulled on the grounds that he wasn’t the person at their wedding and that his ‘wife’ actually married an imposter instead of him. However, the judge rejected Goyal’s claims as untrue.
Goyal will seemingly now need to pay maintenance to his wife and daughter. He earned a salary of £185k plus bonuses whilst at UBS but hasn’t worked in the City of London since 2012 and is £300k in debt. When they first met Goyal, his wife and her family were reportedly enamoured of his solvency: “Mr Goyal was a well-educated young man with evidently good prospects in the well-paid world of international finance,” said the judge in his original ruling. That appears to have been a mistake.
Meanwhile:
Citigroup and JPMorgan have both said that trading revenues are down 15+ year-on-year in the first quarter. Both want to build their equities units, however. (Bloomberg)
Human equity traders in Europe are being squeezed out by machines, still. (Bloomberg)
The Ukraine crisis is denting European banks’ recovery strategies. (Breaking Views)
UK official seen carrying document saying UK should not close its financial centre to Russians. (Financial Times)
Can an MBA improve your marriage prospects? (Poets and Quants)
Related links:
Post-bonus hiring merry-go-round now rotating. Why male bankers marry female fashionistas