Exterior of the Royal Bank Plaza towers at the corner of Bay St. and Wellington St. West in Toronto on April 17, 2014.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
The European fixed-income trading market has not been an easy one in recent years, but Royal Bank of Canada is sticking with a strategy of "selective" growth.
RBC said Wednesday that it was hiring a group of traders, including new heads of sterling rates trading and sterling inflation trading. The emphasis in the new hires is on trading products denominated in the U.K. pound.
The bank named Andrew Graham to run sterling rates trading, the same role he held at Merrill Lynch. Neil Weatherall becomes head of sterling inflation trading, the same role he held at RBS.
The bank also hired Richard Peter as a vice-president in inflation trading. Mickael Makowski, previously at Credit Suisse, joined as an associate in inflation trading and Paddy Owens, previously at Morgan Stanley, joined as an associate, cross currency trading, the bank said.
RBC has been building in some parts of the European fixed income market while others have backed out. However, the Canadian bank has scaled back some ambitions in the region of late. A year ago, for example, RBC closed its European government bond trading business.
"Europe is a key part of our global FIC platform and we continue to further develop focused capabilities in the region that play to our strengths as a firm," said Jonathan Hunter, who runs fixed income and currencies globally for RBC.
"This includes extending our leading position in the sterling debt markets, growing our euro denominated business in select products, as well as leveraging the growing footprint of our North American franchise across rates, credit, origination and FX to service our European clients."