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RECENT INDUSTRY PEOPLE MOVES

Here are some People Moves we have read about so far this year...

Last month, Vichara Technologies announced they had added Jamie Harper as Managing Director of Business Development within the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions.

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Pamela A. Gibbs has been named as the inaugural Director of the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion, which oversees diversity in the agency’s employment, management, and business activities. We first read about this hire on the DerivSource website.

The BBC reported that US web portal Yahoo! has named Scott Thompson, the president of online payments firm Paypal, as its new head.

Bonds.com Group, Inc. announced that Michael Gooch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GFI Group Inc. was been named to the firm's Board of Directors.

LCH.Clearnet appointed Lisa Rosen as Group Head of Compliance and Public Affairs. Previously, Lisa was Managing Director, Global Head of Regulatory Affairs at Barclays Capital in London. We read about this hire on the DerivSource website.

Cate Long, a guest contributor to Reuters.com on the municipal bond market, wrote: "Fitch Appoints Taylor as Chief Executive to Replace Joynt [only Moody's hasn't replaced head of firm since crisis]".

Global Custodian reported that KNEIP have appointed Philippe Maupas to manage their financial information Division.

ISS Mag reported that Independent financial research company, Defaqto, hired Asitha Rodrigo as its Chief Technology Officer. He was previously at Standard & Poor's.

News Corp. named former Bloomberg LP chief executive Lex Fenwick as CEO of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co. Here is the announcement in the WSJ.

WHAT A MORNING FOR NEWS IN THE MARKET DATA AND VENDOR WORLD

The first news we read this morning was that the Deutsche Börse/NYSE deal has been blocked. The European Commission says the tie-up would stifle competition despite claims that the combined company would be a ‘European champion’. Here's coverage from FT Trading Room (subscription). This is Bloomberg's story based on DB/NYSE statements, EU Vetoes Deutsche Boerse-NYSE Euronext Merger.

Then we read via Finextra that Bloomberg is opening up its market data distribution API. The article says "The API, called BLPAPI, is used daily by more than 100,000 financial services professionals, pumping them market data. It has now been made publicly available under a free-use license meaning Bloomberg Professional subscribers, non-customers and vendors and software developers can use it as an alternative to proprietary technologies for data distribution."

In addition we read that the former Thomson Reuters risk division has re-launched as Turaz. Turaz's LinkedIn group states: "Vista Equity Partners today announced it has completed its acquisition of Thomson Reuters Trade and Risk Management business following the agreement that was announced on 23rd September, 2011. The new company will be called Turaz."

A SUMMARY OF 2012 PREDICTIONS

We’ve been reading many predictions about what’s in store for 2012. But, in case 2011 is a long distant memory, check out this summary from Lianna Brinded at Euromoney for a whirlwind tour of last year. Below is a summary of some of the news articles we’ve read with their predictions for 2012.

RISK

Eurasia Group published their Top Risks for 2012. They write, “The most important macro theme for 2012: The world’s key political decision-makers will be focused heavily on questions of domestic economic stability at the expense of international security concerns at a moment when politics is having unprecedented impact on the global economy. This conflation of global politics and markets defines the formal end of the 9/11 era, a moment when decision-makers sought to isolate globalization from international security concerns.” The end of the 9/11 era is their top risk for 2012. Here is the full article, Eurasia Group’s Top Risks 2012. 

ECONOMICS

The Eurozone gets a lot of attention in the press.

A Reuters' poll suggests the pound will hold firm versus the Euro in 2012.

Simon Smith, Chief Economist at FxPro says 2012 will decides euro’s fate, as muddling through becomes unaffordable and politically unsustainable. He also thinks a country (Greece) will leave the Euro.

Chris Skinner, published an excellent article on his Financial Services Club Blog earlier in the week where he sums up his four predictions:

• Asia’s light continues to shine, but not quite as bright
• American equities is the place to invest
• There will be a major European bank failure
• A country will leave the Eurozone

This is the full article, 2012: an economic outlook and we also recommend you read his 2012: a bank technology outlook and his 2012: a banking outlook articles.

We watched this twenty minute YouTube video that was published on the ZeroHedge website, a Q&A session between Michael Hewson, Senior Market Analyst at CMC Markets and Megan Greene, Senior Economist at Roubini Global Economic. Megan also predicts Greece will leave the Euro and much, much more.

Keith Mullin, Editor-At-Large of International Financing Review (IFRR) wrote in his twitter feed there are "very few positives for financial markets." Here is his article. You know any article that starts with the statement You Thought 2011 Was Tough? is not one that is going to offer much cheer. And neither is the one that tells us that recession in Europe is the number one economic issue for 2012. Of course it's not just the Eurozone. @bloombergview tweeted earlier in the week, Why we're uneasy about the global economy in 2012.

But at least Kate Burgess in the Financial Times (subscription) writes asset managers hope that 2012 will be a brighter year.

And! More good cheer! A new study has suggested that America's largest banks are set to enjoy increased levels of profit throughout 2012.

DATA, TRADING & TECHNOLOGY

Now more specifically to our industry...Here is a selection of industry articles. Big Data is very topical, as is RDR and Regulations.

A readers' poll in ISS-Mag talks about the top five IT Spends for 2012. They are 1) Swaps trading and central clearing, 2) Data Management, 3) Risk Management, 4) Cloud Computing and 5) Corporate Actions. Another article informed us that wealth management firms plan to boost IT spending in 2012. This Forbes' published summary of 2012 cloud predictions is very interesting.

On data, DataQualityPro.com provide 5 Data Quality Predictions for 2012 and one pundit predicts 2012 will be the year companies will learn to love Big Data.

On trading, The Seven Global Market Structure Trends for 2012 written by @marketstructure for @SecTechMonitor is an excellent read.

DerivSource, the online community and information source for professionals active in derivatives processing, technology and related services, runs an article on ISDA's operational priorities and projects for 2012, written by ISDA's Julian Day, Head of Market Infrastructure.

Here's The Wall Street Journal's 2012 Regulatory and Market Landscape with a look ahead for The Volcker Rule, CFTC, SEC, CFPB, deals and deal-makers, IPOs, hedge funds, commodities, exchanges, high frequency traders, stock trading and ETFs.

And finally! We are on the Final RDR Countdown and Money Marketing says 2012 "marks the last year of the pre-RDR era and many advisers will have a fight on their hands to ensure they are ready in time."

RECENT PEOPLE MOVES

Here are some People Moves that have been announced over the past few weeks...

Progress Software announced last month they had appointed Jay Bhatt as President and Chief Executive Officer.

XSP, the global leader in automated end-to-end Corporate Actions solutions, announced in November that Patrick Williamon joined the Company as a Quality Assurance Manager.

Also last month, Inside Market Data (subscription) reported McGraw-Hill's Platts energy and commodities data business had hired Gordon Springett in the newly created role of senior compliance officer, based in London.

At the start of this month, ICAP announced the appointment of Gary Pettit to the new position of Global Head of Financial Futures and Options. Gary Pettit was formerly Global Head of Futures and Options at MF Global. The press release states that ICAP has also "recruited, so far, an additional 25 former MF Global staff across London, New York, Chicago and Sydney which will significantly enhance its existing execution brokerage offering."

Finextra reported that Vocalink had named David Yates as their new CEO.

IPC Systems, a leading provider of trading communications solutions to the world's top financial services firms, announced the appointment of Peter Brucia to Vice President of Sales, focused on increasing data services worldwide.

ISS-Mag reported that GlobeOp had appointed Eamon Greaves as Global Head of Business Development.

ISS-Mag has also hired a Chris Kentouris as editor-in-chief for International Securities Services Magazine's online edition.

Zephyr Associates, a global leader in the development of analytical software tools for the financial management industry, announced that Alexander McBride has joined the firm as a Client Consultant in its London office.

WealthBriefing announced Bonaire Software Solutions, an asset management technology firm, has appointed Robin Sproull as director of programme management for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Sumerian announced they had named Bryan Clark as CEO. 

On Twitter we read via @MikeHypercube that Bank of America had named John Bottega Chief Data Officer.

BATS Chi-X Europe announced their executive committee appointments. Reuters reported that "Bats Europe former top management have claimed all but two of the top jobs in the newly formed Bats Chi-X Europe, created by Bats Global Markets' takeover of rival exchange Chi-X completed two weeks ago."

GorkanaPR announced that Peter Thomas has joined Bloomberg as head of corporate communications for the organisation across the EMEA region. (This was reported on Twitter by @AndrewCarrier.)

LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE BUYS FTSE

City AM reported this morning that The London Stock Exchange took total control of stock index provider FTSE International yesterday, by buying Pearson’s 50 per cent stake for £450m.

The press release entitled FTSE Announces New Ownership Structure states, "FTSE’s ambitious growth plans will be accelerated with the support of the London Stock Exchange Group, including its expansion in geographies such as the US, where increased usage of its indices amongst some of the largest asset owners and investment managers accounts for 30% of total index revenues."

Reuters, in their report LSE snaps up Pearson's FTSE stake, stated the "acquisition is the latest move by LSE Chief Executive Xavier Rolet to take tighter control of the various business units that the LSE relies on to offer its trading, clearing, data and technology services."

The Independent's article, Rolet's back with £450mn FTSE deal, points out this deal works on two levels:

"Firstly, it is a good fit with the exchange's continuing attempts to force its way into the derivatives business – it has already launched FTSE 100 futures through its electronic trading platform Turquoise, challenging Liffe, the London futures exchange. Having full control of FTSE will help the LSE to develop further products.

Secondly, it fits with Mr Rolet's attempts to seize control of the various nuts and bolts of the exchange business that he doesn't already own. He remains in talks over a deal to buy LCH.Clearnet, which clears trades over the exchange, and two years ago bought Millennium IT, a Sri Lankan technology company, with the aim of securing control of the software that underpins the exchange's various operations and selling it to others."

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• PRESS DIGEST - Financial Times - Dec 13
  Mon, Dec 12 2011 
• UPDATE 4-LSE snaps up Pearson's FTSE stake
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  Mon, Dec 12 2011 

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LSE snaps up Pearson's FTSE stake

STANDARD & POOR'S RE-ORGANISATION

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has announced its first management shakeup since former Citigroup executive Doug Peterson took over in September, saying the ratings firm's chief credit officer will be succeeded by a veteran employee.

The S&P press release yesterday announced the following changes:

"As part of the organizational change, Mr. Coughlin, who had been Executive Managing Director, Corporate & Government Ratings, has been named Executive Managing Director, Global Analytics & Operations. He will coordinate global management of the analytical units and have direct responsibility for the ratings business, including corporate, financial services, government and structured finance in the Americas. During a transition period, he will oversee the Structured Finance Groups worldwide.

David Jacob, who had been the Global Head of Structured Finance, will be leaving Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services at the end of the year.

Mr. Le Pallec, Managing Director, Corporate and Government Ratings for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), has been named Executive Managing Director, EMEA with responsibility for the ratings business in these important regions.

Mr. Dinwoodie, Managing Director, Corporate Ratings, has been named Executive Managing Director, Market Development, a new global role based in London. He will be responsible for outreach and service for investors and other market participants, strategic planning, and merger and acquisition activities.

Mr. Sniado, Chief Technology Officer, has been named Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer with an expanded portfolio of responsibilities, including Operational Performance and Data Strategy & Operations.

Mark H. Adelson, who most recently served as Chief Credit Officer and was instrumental in strengthening the firm’s criteria process, has been named Senior Research Fellow. Mr. Adelson will lead critical new research projects as part of an expanded thought leadership initiative.

Ian D. Thompson, Managing Director, Chief Credit Officer, Asia-Pacific, has been appointed Senior Managing Director, Chief Credit Officer with global responsibility."

THOMSON REUTERS ANNOUNCES NEW ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE AND LEADERSHIP

Thomson Reuters issued a new press release yesterday regarding their new organisational structure and leadership.

The press release begins...

Thomson Reuters (TSX/NYSE: TRI), the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced the new organizational structure and leadership it will adopt as of January 1, 2012. This new, integrated structure aligns our business with our key customer segments and will consist of the following business units:

• Financial & Risk: David Craig, president
• Legal: Mike Suchsland, president
• Intellectual Property & Science: Chris Kibarian, president
• Tax & Accounting: Brian Peccarelli, president
• Global Growth Organization: Shanker Ramamurthy, president

On December 31, 2011, Thomas H. Glocer, chief executive officer of Thomson Reuters and Reuters Group PLC since 2001, will retire and be succeeded on January 1, 2012 by James C. Smith, currently chief operating officer of Thomson Reuters. Mr. Glocer will also retire as a director of Thomson Reuters on December 31, 2011.

This is the full press release.

RECENT PEOPLE MOVES

Take heart, there is hiring going on. Here are some interesting moves we’ve spotted in the past few weeks...

November 14^th 2011 - a press release by Rimes announced that “to support the company’s continued growth...Steve Davey has joined the company as Head of IT Infrastructure and Information Security, effective immediately. Reporting jointly to the CEO and the CTO, Davey will be responsible for maintaining RIMES’ global IT infrastructure and data centers in order to further enhance the delivery and reliability of RIMES BDS^sm, their award-winning benchmark data service. Additionally, he will oversee the Company’s information security.” 

November 15^th 2011 - MarketWatch reported that Pipeline Financial Group, Inc. will appoint Jay Biancamano as Executive Chairman.

November 16^th 2011 - Bats Europe named Adam Eades Head of Regulatory and Legal Affairs

A week ago, Andrew Carrier tweeted he’d read via Gorkana: "@BishopsgateCopy is now editor of FX-MM magazine. He previously had senior comms and banking roles at Saudi Hollandi Bank and HSBC.”  

November 21 2011 – Omgeo, the global standard for post-trade efficiency, announced the appointment of Ted Leveroni as Executive Director of Derivatives Strategy and External Relations. In his new role, Mr. Leveroni will be responsible for driving the development of strategies to grow Omgeo’s derivatives business.

November 21^st 2011 - XSP, the global leader in automated end-to-end Corporate Actions solutions, announced that Patrick Williamon has joined the Company as a Quality Assurance Manager. This appointment has been further supported by new hires within its Quality Assurance and Development teams. 

November 22^nd 2011 – Lianna Brinded wrote that Jean-Claude Trichet has re-surfaced as Chairman for the Group of 30 (G30), the international forum of public and private sector financial leaders.

Also via twitter on November 22^nd 2011 - @lkramer wrote “Big Move By Reuters: Managing Editor Dan Colarusso of Bloomberg TV Leaves for Reuters – FishbowlNY”

November 23^rd 2011 - MarketPrizm, a leading provider of market data and trading infrastructure services announced two key hires for its European team with the appointment of Megan Hession as Client Director and Ralph Achkar as Director, Product.

CUSIP GLOBAL SERVICES REACHES AGREEMENT WITH THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION

From a press release via PR Newswire...

"CUSIP Global Services (CGS), a leading provider of securities identifiers and other solutions that enable efficient trading, clearing and settlement in capital markets throughout the world, today announced it has reached an agreement with the European Commission (EC) to create and distribute a new data feed of US ISINs tailored specifically to the needs of certain market participants domiciled in the European Economic Area (EEA).  The agreement follows a formal EC investigation of how CGS licenses and charges financial institutions for use of the US ISIN identifier within the EEA during which the EC made no findings of infringement.

"We welcome the EC's decision to allow CGS to market a new US ISIN service designed for market participants in the EEA who have unique, regional requirements and therefore require less comprehensive security identifier data than has been previously made available," said Jim Taylor, Global Head, CUSIP Global Services.  "CUSIP Global Services is continually looking at market needs and for ways to better address local investor requirements."

Containing limited descriptive data for certain publicly traded US securities, the new data feed, called the US ISIN Basic Service, brings to conclusion nearly three years of dialogue between CGS and the EC. Within the next five months, CGS will offer the new feed on a cost-recovery basis for participants taking it directly from CGS.  If a market data vendor chooses to integrate the new feed on behalf of its EEA customers, the end customers of that vendor could use the ISIN data from the feed, with some reasonable restrictions, without incurring any additional fees from CGS.

Apart from implementing the new data feed CGS will continue to reinvest in and add value to the more comprehensive data products with which most global financial institutions are familiar, whether they consume them directly from CGS or via a market data vendor.  CGS will also continue to expand its asset classes; support other identification initiatives such as the push for a common legal entity identifier; and enrich the descriptive data upon which so many firms rely for efficient idea-generation, trading, clearing, and settlement."

THE IMPACT OF MF GLOBAL'S DEMISE

At Hawk Search we work with firms that sell data, research, software and technology to buy-side and sell-side firms. We don’t work with brokers, except where they have business divisions that sell broker data to third parties. Whilst we have never worked directly with MF Global, the firm’s demise does impact firms in our sector.

The MF Global company page on LinkedIn shows that a dozen people in our network joined the firm in recent weeks. They also were advertising for a VP Marketing based in Canary Wharf. There’ll be uncertainty for staff and there’ll be disappointed candidates who’d have been somewhere in the hiring process.

We read several articles today that highlight the knock-on effects in our world of financial data and technology.

The Financial Times reports that MF Global’s demise will be felt by commodities exchanges.

Finextra reported this morning that the MF Global collapse hit shares of Patsystems. They also claimed that the vendors with technology exposure to MF Global include Ffastfill, Thomson Reuters, and Fidessa. In a trading update, Fidessa says that it "does not anticipate that the situation at MF Global will have any material impact on the results for the year". There's more here from Securities Technology Monitor about how the bankruptcy will hit Patsystems.

Another casualty of the demise is Washington Research Group, acquired by MF Global a year ago. We read on the Integrity Research website that they are set to be orphaned for the fourth time. 

These articles are set against a backdrop of tighter market regulations and Business Week published this article stating that MF Global had exposed the prop trading risk that Volker aims to curb.

This YouTube interview with Reuters Breakingviews said "MF Global's bankruptcy filing reinforces the idea that proprietary trading belongs where its damage to the system can be limited."

There's a mass of opinion about MF Global on twitter, particularly around allegations that hundreds of millions of dollars of client money may have gone missing in recent days and weeks. In the Twittersphere one tweeter, @johnpneedham, writes "I remain agog at the hubris that led anyone at MF to believe they could nick even a dollar from Customer Seg and not get caught."

A-TEAM'S DMRAV EVENT WAS ENJOYABLE YESTERDAY

A big thank you to A-Team for their Data Management for Risk, Analytics and Valuations event yesterday. It was great to meet with A-Team's Angela Wilbraham, Virginie O'Shea, Jim Willis and Ron Wilbraham as well as many other people from buy-side firms and the vendor community.

There were a range of panels and sessions covering a new legal entity identifier (LEI), data integration, big data, valuations and much, much more!

In the valuations panel A-Team used a recent evaluations survey as a basis for a discussion with Six Telekurs' Richard Newbury, S&P's Roderik Gonggrijp and Blackrock's Huw Bishop. There was even a reference to a communist approach to pricing, albeit in jest! This panel along with Six Telekurs' session on evaluations with Ian Blance were topical and interesting for Hawk Search as we do work in this area both for evaluators as well as commercial staff.

SIX MONTHS SINCE THE DAVIES' REPORT, WOMEN ON BOARDS

It is six months since the former Trade Minister, Lord Davies, was appointed by the government to look into why so few women make it into senior positions in UK business. Earlier this year figures showed that just 12.5% of FTSE100 company directors were women. Lord Davies' report, Women on Boards, came out in February 2011. He recommended that UK listed companies in FTSE100 companies should aim for a minimum of 25% female board member representation by 2015.

This morning, BBC Radio Four's Woman's Hour looked at how those companies are doing in an interview with Ruth Sealy, Senior Research Fellow at Cranfield School Management. This is the interview on iPlayer (25 minutes in, but only available for a week from today).

Sealy points out in her interview that only 6 months have passed since the report was published so that is not much time to expect huge changes. She highlights some positives:

• February's 12.5% figure is now >14% in just six months.
• Of new appointments, the percentage going to women has gone up with over 22% of new appointments going to women, over the last 6 months.
• Of all the new appointees in the past 6 months, the majority had not had prior FTSE board experience. Sealy says executive search firms and Chairmen are broadening the pool of talent from which they are looking. This means it's not the same women on boards doing the rounds all the time.

In the interview, Sealy also pointed out that many firms, particularly FTSE250 ones, ignore the recommendations. In these firms, the figures are not as favourable as amongst the FTSE100 and there tends to be an attitude of let's wait and see if we really need to do something. She also added that there is a real-threat from the European Commission, in that they may try to impose quotas for women on boards.

When asked what is the chance of Lord Davies' recommendation of a minimum 25% of female board representation happening by 2015, Sealy responded that if boards continue at the same rate of change of 22.5% of positions going to women, then the target will be missed. To hit the target, 30% of appointments need to go to women. She added there are 155 women on FTSE boards and to get to  Davies' target of 25%, we only need a further 155 women appointed to boards.

WHY AN EMPLOYER COULD REJECT YOU BECAUSE OF YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE

Kashmir Hill, a Forbes' privacy blogger, recently wrote a blog posting citing a start-up firm, Reppler, that recently commissioned a new survey of 300 hiring types to see how they’re using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Craigslist, Tumblr, MySpace, et. al. to screen candidates: 91% of them are doing social networking screens of job applicants. Yes, 91%!

Within the survey this question was asked...

Have you ever rejected a candidate because of what you saw about them on a social networking website?

Here's a graphic of the responses:

Here's the blog post from Reppler (with a clearer graphic), entitled Managing Your Online Image Across Social Networks.

Kashmir Hill

The Not-So Private Parts

• My Profile
• My Headline Grabs
• My RSS Feed

Oct. 4 2011 — 4:00 pm | 1 comment

From The Bad Idea File: A ‘Guess Who’s Going To Be Fired Next’ Contest

'The Office' meets 'Lord of the Flies'

A real-life boss in Illinois has outdone The Office’s Michael Scott. William Ernst, owner of a chain of convenience stores called Q-C Mart, decided to run a “fun” game at his stores last March, sending out a memo to all employees announcing it: “NEW CONTEST – GUESS THE NEXT CASHIER WHO WILL BE FIRED!!!”

continue »

 

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Oct. 4 2011 — 2:06 pm | 0 comments

Quotes of the Day: Justifying Your Facebook Addiction

Lucky timing?

“No, I really do use Facebook all day long.”

– Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, responding (in 6 minutes) to someone who suggested that “just as drug dealers don’t use the product they sell,” Zuck was probably not as addicted to his site as the rest of its users. Zuck, though, probably doesn’t spend all his time playing Farmville. Via TruthfulTech/Zdnet.

“I don’t trust people in our industry who don’t use Facebook… It’s the soul of how hundreds of millions of people are really experiencing their first time of participating online.”

– Scott Heiferman, founder of Meetup.com in an interview with Chris Dixon on TechCrunch, providing more proof that opting out of using Facebook is increasingly not an option.

 

 

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Oct. 4 2011 — 9:39 am | 5 comments

How The Past Haunts Us In The Digital Age

Facebook's Timeline brings the past to the present seamlessly

We often talk about how our pasts follow us online in a reputational sense. Last year, legal scholar Jeff Rosen took to the NYT Magazine to lament the “end of forgetting” in the age of the Web, and the downside of having embarrassing information archived permanently to be perused by future employers, significant others, and anyone who might type your name into a search engine. Facebook’s new Timeline has me thinking about another non-public aspect of ‘the end of forgetting’: the way we can unexpectedly invoke  our emotional histories thanks to the easy mining of our email and social networking accounts.

Almost everyone I have talked to has had this experience. You’re searching your email account with some innocuous phrase — “concert,” “dinner,” “orange juice,” “you’re breaking my heart,” “why did you kill my puppy?” — and you unexpectedly stumble upon a years-old conversation you had with someone. Whether you were at work, on your way out the door, or about to embark on a new project, you’re soon reading back through various email exchanges that capture the heartache, burgeoning love, or terrible agony of the time, and all of the emotions come flooding back. This used to be something you did consciously — making the decision to dig out a box of mementos from the back of your closet, or thumb back through an old journal, or meet with a person from your past for coffee — but now, Gmail may just unexpectedly serve it up to you in a search of your inbox. Our electronic pasts become accordion-like; moments from years earlier can suddenly be mushed up to the present — that can be painful, or wonderful, or thrilling… or all of these things, as it was for a Good writer who went through her four-year history of chat messages with her boyfriend after his death from cancer.

Facebook plans to offer us all a version of this soon, in the form of “Timeline.” (Well, not too soon. Timelines, Inc. has sued the social networking behemoth for trademark infringement. Facebook will be holding back the roll-out of that new feature until it figures out how much it’ll take to pay off Timelines, Inc. clears that legal matter up.) Timeline (assuming it’s still called that after the legal matter is cleared up) will mine your profile for all of the most important moments of your life and surface those to the front page of your profile. Depending on how much you turn to Facebook for the chronicling and journaling of your life, this might unearth some powerful moments you hadn’t expected, or wouldn’t have necessarily wanted, its algorithms to serve up to you.

“It’s a time machine,” wrote Charlie White of Mashable after activating his own Timeline before the official release. continue »

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Oct. 3 2011 — 9:26 am | 2 comments

What Prospective Employers Hope To See In Your Facebook Account: Creativity, Well-Roundedness, & ‘Chastity’

McGRAW HILL AND CME IN TALKS TO MERGE INDEX BUSINESSES

There's coverage today of the report that McGraw Hill  (who own S&P), and the CME group (who own the Dow Jones Indexes) are in talks to combine their index businesses in a joint venture.

A Reuters' source has said, "McGraw-Hill would own the majority of the joint venture and manage it, while CME would own about 25 percent".

A Chicago Tribune article cautions that these talks "to form a joint venture between McGraw Hill's S&P Indices business and CME's Dow Jones Indexes unit began more than a year ago and could fall apart."

McGRAW HILL TO SPLIT INTO TWO COMPANIES

Yesterday McGraw Hill announced it will split into two listed companies. S&P, will become a part of McGraw-Hill Markets, once the split is completed.

This is the summary from Securities Technology Monitor:

McGraw-Hill Markets: Will be led by McGraw as Chairman, President and CEO. Will leverage proprietary data and analytics platforms to provide customers with information, market insights and integrated approaches to inform decision-making on trillions of dollars of assets. Will include Standard & Poor’s, the provider of credit ratings; S&P Indices, the world’s leading index business; S&P Capital IQ, a global provider of multi-asset class data, research, benchmarks and analytics; and Platts, the leading global provider of information and indices in energy, petrochemicals and metals. Also included will be J.D. Power and Associates, a global market research and services company, and leading franchises in the construction and aerospace industries.

McGraw-Hill Markets serves customers in more than 150 countries and expects 2011 revenues of approximately $4 billion with close to 40% from international markets.

McGraw-Hill Education: Will become an independent business operating in K-12, higher education and professional education markets. Will offer educational materials online and in print for K-12, supplemental digital services to the elementary and high-school markets, and post-secondary educational resources and digital learning systems to universities and other higher education and professional institutions and organizations worldwide.

RISKI - THE FINANCIAL MARKET REGULATORY RESOURCE

We've just been listening to the rating agencies testifying at the House hearing and have been following updates on Twitter as S&P, Kroll, Moody's and Rapid Ratings have been questioned. One tweeter we've followed for a while is Cate Long in New York and it was one of her tweets that sent the link for the live hearing.

Cate's twitter handle references a great resource for financial market regulation.

We'd been thinking about having a financial markets glossary on the Hawk Search blog but see no reason to re-invent the wheel.

For your one-stop resource for financial markets regulation, check out Cate's Riski resource. Riski was developed as an open platform for legislators, market participants, financial technology experts, regulators, lobbyists, academics and the media to contribute to a body of knowledge about these important topics.

RATING AGENCIES RECEIVE MUCH PRESS COVERAGE AFTER PORTUGAL DOWNGRADE

Here's some of the press coverage following Moody's downgrade of Portugal this week...

This YouTube video opens quoting the German Finance Minister after the recent downgrade of Portugal's debt to junk status by ratings agency, Moody's: "Unjustified and unfair...but with the power to determine the fate of countries". In response to the question, "How reliable are rating agencies?" Patrick Young, Writer and Editor, states that two or three years ago the EU said the ratings produced by rating agencies could not be trusted and yet, when they come out with plausible ratings against the EU, suddenly they are being described as disgraceful because the are trying to get at the truth.

The above view is supported by a lead article in today's Independent under the heading, "Shooting The Messenger". It states that "though the agencies got it desperately wrong in the boom, they are getting it broadly right on the quality of the debt of governments from the eurozone periphery."

This Daily Telegraph article journalist Ambrose-Evan Pritchard writes that the "EU authorities are attempting to muzzle free opinion, first by threatening Fitch, Moody’s, and S&P with vague retribution, and then by drafting restrictive laws to prevent them from publishing unwelcome messages."

A Wall Street Journal article cites a Germany ministry spokesman, "In principle we see as positive anything that leads to more competition among rating agencies. At the same time, a solution must come without state participation."

NEW REPORT: HAS INDEPENDENT RESEARCH COME OF AGE?

Sharing a report with you that we read this morning: Has Independent Research Come Of Age? It's written by Vince Heaney on behalf of EuroIRP and CSFI.

The EuroIRP website states it's a "timely investigation into the independent sector and the challenges it faces in bringing investors objective research from conflict-free sources."

It's a very interesting report and well worth a read.

Keywords: Independent research, regulatory compliance, sell-side research, broker research, inside information, unbundling, commissions, commission sharing arrangements (CSAs), expert networks.

INSIDE MARKET DATA AND INSIDE REFERENCE DATA AWARD WINNERS 2011

This week Inside Market Data and Inside Reference Data announced their market data and reference data winners at an awards ceremony in New York.

Here's a cut and paste of the list of 2011 winners. Aine has hired staff for 35% of the winning firms.

Best Data Provider (Vendor)
Bloomberg

Best Data Provider (Exchange)
NYSE Euronext

Best Data Provider (Broker)
Tullett Prebon Information

Best Data Provider for Equities
Bloomberg

Best Data Provider for Derivatives
SuperDerivatives

Best Data Provider for Fixed Income
Bloomberg

Best Data Provider for Foreign Exchange
Thomson Reuters

Best News Provider
Dow Jones Newswires

Best Research Provider
FactSet Research Systems

Best Analytics Provider
Capital IQ Compustat

Best Low-Latency Data Vendor
Thomson Reuters

Best Data Networking and Infrastructure Provider
BT Global Financial Services

Best Supporting Services Provider
MDSL

Best New Data Product
Bloomberg - Bloomberg Anywhere iPad app

Acquisition of the Year
CME Group - Acquires 90% of Dow Jones Indexes

Contract Win of the Year
Xignite

Best Real-Time Market Data Initiative (Vendor)
Thomson Reuters - Elektron Global Infrastructure Launch

Most Innovative Market Data Project (Vendor)
Nasdaq OMX - Nasdaq Data On Demand

Best Real-Time Market Data Initiative (User)
Royal Bank of Scotland - Rolls Out Thomson Reuters Enterprise Platform to Support Integration

Most Innovative Market Data Project (User)
Citigroup - "Direct to Source" Initiative

Inside Reference Data Awards 2011 - WINNERS

Best Reference Data Provider
Interactive Data

Best Enterprise Data Management Vendor
Asset Control

Best Evaluated Prices Service Provider
Interactive Data

Best Counterparty Data Provider
Avox

Best Corporate Actions Data Provider
SIX Telekurs

Best Corporate Actions Vendor
SmartStream

Best Enterprise Data Management Initiative (Vendor)
GoldenSource - Enhanced ASP Offering with Independent Price Verification

Best Reference Data Initiative (Vendor)
SIX Telekurs - Structured Products Initiative

Best Enterprise Data Management Initiative (User)
Robeco Asset Management - Cadis Implementation

Best Reference Data Initiative (User)
Scotiabank - Centralized Security Master

SEC TO START HIRING AND SPEND ON TECHNOLOGY

A Bloomberg report today says the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is using a USD74 million funding boost stemming from a congressional budget compromise to hire derivatives specialists, boost oversight of credit-rating and catch up on Dodd-Frank Act requirements.

The money will partially address the agency’s “capacity gap” by allowing hiring in its enforcement, inspections and trading and markets units, Schapiro said today in testimony prepared for a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on fiscal year 2012 budgets for the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

This announcement is hot on the heels of a Dealbook report yesterday that said The SEC and The CFTC are struggling to fill crucial jobs, enforce new rules, upgrade market surveillance technology and pay for travel.

Here's the Testimony on the President FY 2012 Budget Request for the SEC by Chairman Mary Schapiro.

Here are the current SEC openings and the current CFTC openings.

CITY PAY PACKETS OFFSET BONUS FALLS

A Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) press release issued this morning states that despite fall in bonuses in 2010/11, growth in City workers’ pay packets continues to outpace the rest of the UK.

The study highlights that despite falling bonus payments, City workers continue to earn bumper pay packets bolstered by rising regular pay. Cebr estimate that average regular pay for City workers in the first quarter of 2011 is some 7% higher than a year ago and much higher than growth of just over 2% for the UK as a whole – lower bonuses have not put an end to the culture of high remuneration in the City.

Click here to read the report.

ROUND UP OF RECENT INDUSTRY PRODUCT NEWS

Today Interactive Data Corporation announced a new Fair Value Information Service that will provide real-time evaluated prices for more than 15,000 international equities throughout the trading day. Click here for the press release.

Also today, Finextra reported that SunGard has bought Valuelink Information Services. Finextra states that the deal will extend SunGard's Asset Arena suite of investment management solutions to include robust validation of security pricing and corporate actions data in support of fund valuation and operational reporting processes.

Citi announced it has launched its CitiFX Pro Trading Platform in the UK. Its online foreign exchange trading platform is for experienced individual and small institutional traders.

GigaSpaces Technologies, a leading provider of a new generation of virtualised application platforms delivering end-to-end scalability, announces that SuperDerivatives, a world-leading derivatives solutions provider, is using GigaSpaces eXtreme Application Platform (XAP) with some of its SD risk management solutions. Click here for press release.

//www.citifxpro.com/sites/default/files/content/pdf/Citi-Launches-CitiFX-Pro-Trading-Platform-UK.pdf

NASDAQ OMX MOVES IN ON NYSE EURONEXT BID

Finextra reports that Nasdaq OMX is reported to be talking to advisers, led by Bank of America, about a counter-bid for NYSE Euronext, funded by $5 billion of debt. The article says that any deal would be dependent on IntercontinentalExchange buying some parts of the vast NYSE Euronext empire, including the Liffe European derivatives trading business.

A Dow Jones report says the Head of IntercontinentalExchange Inc. declined to comment on mounting speculation it would take part in an effort to break up the agreed merger of NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Boerse AG.

A BBC report this morning says none of the parties involved has officially commented, despite widespread media reports, with Bloomberg, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times all independently confirming the claims.

WHAT MAKES UP MCGRAW HILL FINANCIAL?

Lou Eccleston is President, McGraw Hill Financial, a business division that has recently re-structured within McGraw Hill.

From Lou's LinkedIn profile (read 24th February 2011):

"McGraw-Hill Financial was formed to combine a portfolio of leading brands and businesses such as S&P Indices, Capital IQ, Valuations and Risk Strategies and MarketScope Advisor.

The establishment of McGraw-Hill Financial under Lou Eccleston is the culmination of actions taken over the past two years to harness the power of financial information, data and analytics and to organize them on a common sales and marketing platform, The goal is to enhance our ability to deliver a broad and deep suite of products for investors across asset classes around the world.

McGraw-Hill Financial plans to deploy the most innovative technology strategies to deliver to customers a portfolio of cross-asset analytics, integrated desktop services, valuation and index benchmarks and investment recommendations in the rapidly growing $16 billion financial information, data and analytics market.

McGraw-Hill Financial, a part of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE:MHP), is a leading provider of research and analytical tools for investment advisors, wealth managers and institutional investors. It deploys the latest innovative technology strategies to deliver to customers a portfolio of cross-asset analytics, integrated desktop services, valuation and index benchmarks and investment recommendations in the rapidly growing $16 billion financial information, data and analytics market."

An Inside Reference Data interview with Lou gives his brief outline of the structure of McGraw Hill Financial into four major business lines. Here's a quick summary but there'll be more information in the March issue of Inside Reference Data.

INTEGRATED DESKTOP SOLUTIONS: everything that an end user would use as a workflow product on a desktop. This includes Capital IQ, Global Credit Portal, ABSXchange.

ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS: all McGraw Hill's different fee products whereby there will be one fee, one contract for customers.

BENCHMARKS: S&P indices including the S&P 500 and a full range of benchmarks

RESEARCH & ANALYTICS: cross asset research including Equity Research, Market Credit Risks Strategy group and Leveraged Commentary & Data which is one group focussed around cross asset research and looking at capital re-structure.

COVERAGE OF THE BATS CHI-X DEAL

Yesterday, BATS Global Markets entered a definitive agreement to acquire Chi-X Europe, creating the largest pan-European trading centre in terms of market share and notional value traded. Here's the press release on the BATS website.

This WSJ article says there's interest in possibly launching a derivatives-trading platform.

Reuters reports that the deal that "could put even more pressure on the dominance of national bourses that themselves are banding together to survive."

Securities Technolgy Monitor states that one estimate put the deal at $360 million, compared to the $10 billion Deutsche Borse acquisition of NYSE Euronext.

@FTTradingRoom reports that BATS enters the big league with the Chi-X merger.

NYSE, DEUTSCHE BÖRSE IN DEAL TALKS

More exchange news today!

A merger of NYSE Euronext and Deustche Börse AG would create one of the world's biggest exchange groups reports the Wall Street Journal.

On twitter, coverage includes:

@mstar_stocks - New Initiatives or Merger Provide Large Potential Upside for NYSE Euronext

@WSJ: With NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse in merger talks, here's a refresher on who owns which exchanges

LSE TO MERGE WITH TMX TO CREATE GLOBAL STOCK EXCHANGE

Reuters reports that the London Stock Exchange is to buy the owner of the Toronto Stock Exchange in an all share deal to create a major centre for trading in mining shares if likely political opposition in Canada can be overcome.

The TMX statement points out:

"Current discussions contemplate an exchange ratio close to the current market capitalization of London Stock Exchange Group plc and TMX Group Inc. It is currently contemplated that the executive management and senior leadership of the Merged Group will be drawn from a balance of leaders from both organisations. The merged Group would be co-headquartered in London and Toronto and continue to be overseen by its existing regulatory authorities."

The LSE press release says:

"London Stock Exchange Group plc and TMX Group Inc. join forces in merger of equals

• An international exchange leader strongly positioned for growth
• #1 venue in the world by number of listings
• #1 global listings venue for natural resources, mining, energy and clean technology
• Market leader in high-performance, cost-effective cash and derivatives trading technology
• Scale and reach actively managed from joint headquarters in London and Toronto, supported by international centres of excellence"

Here are some views from Twitter this morning...

@gilesnelson UK's LSE and Canada's TMX agree merger. Will be the world's largets exchange by number of companies traded, 7th largest by market cap.

@FTTradingRoom LSE-TMX offers the first example of "interoperability" across the Atlantic - "an industry first", Rolet says

@FTTradingRoom For those who missed it last night, our initial take on the LSE-TMX deal

@RossWestgate LSE up 9% - considering no premiums and risks - either this is a great deal or there's strong expectation of a rival bid.

@larmistead LSE's Rolet says TMX merger will create £35m cost savings by year 3; £100m by year 5

THOMSON REUTERS APPOINTS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

The text below is from the press release viewed on Bobsguide.

Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced that Stephen J. Adler has been appointed editor-in-chief of Reuters News, effective today. Adler has also been named to the newly created position of executive vice president-News of Thomson Reuters, overseeing the entire company’s news strategy and operations. Adler succeeds David A. Schlesinger, who after four years as editor-in-chief will become chairman of Thomson Reuters China to help develop and support its growth strategy in China and build senior relationships in the region. He will also be a regular contributor on China for Reuters.

“Our goal is to make Thomson Reuters the world’s leading source of news for professionals,” said Thomas H. Glocer, chief executive officer of Thomson Reuters, “and Steve Adler is the perfect choice to lead the next phase in this mission. During the past year Steve has recruited and led a talented team of journalists and editors in creating news services for our Legal, Tax & Accounting and Healthcare & Science businesses; he will now incorporate this team into the greater Reuters News organization to serve professionals across all of our businesses.”

“Journalistic excellence will continue to be our hallmark,” said Adler, “and our goal is to become a must-read among global professionals. To that end, we will continue to develop our extraordinary internal talent as well as hiring strategically from outside.”

“This is also the perfect moment for David to return to China in a senior strategic role to support the development of our businesses in this key market,” said Glocer. “Over the past several years Thomson Reuters has significantly expanded our investment and operations in rapidly developing markets. David will now guide the strengthening of our presence, relationships and reputation in China. I also wish to thank David for the significant expansion and development of Reuters news in his time as editor-in-chief.”

Adler, who will be based in New York, joined Thomson Reuters in 2010 as Senior Vice President and Editorial Director of the Professional division. Before joining Thomson Reuters, Adler was editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek, where, during his five-year tenure, the magazine and its website won more than 100 major journalism awards. Earlier, he spent sixteen years at The Wall Street Journal. As Investigative editor there, Adler managed reporting teams that won three Pulitzer Prizes between 1995 and 1999. As deputy managing editor, he oversaw the award-winning Wall Street Journal Online, created The Wall Street Journal Books imprint, and co-taught the ethics and standards course required of all news employees. Previously, he was editor of The American Lawyer. He began his career as a reporter at local newspapers in Florida.

SUNGARD WHITE PAPER - THE IMPORTANCE OF INDEPENDENT VALUATIONS FOR OTC DERIVATIVES UNDER UCITS

Asset managers investing in OTC derivatives within a UCITS structure must now source independent valuations in order to meet the demands of regulators and ease the concern of their investors.

This white paper outlines the requirements of the UCITS directives concerning the treatment of OTC derivatives in the portfolio of funds under the UCITS regime. It provides an overview of the regulation, outlines the importance of accurate valuations for OTC derivatives and discusses key criteria to consider when selecting an OTC valuations process or service.

Click here to download the white paper.

MARKIT ACQUIRES RISK ANALYTICS FIRM, QUIC

Here is an extract from a Markit press release issued today about their most recent acquisition of QuIC Financial Technologies.

London and New York, NY – Markit, a leading, global financial information services company, today announced that it has acquired QuIC Financial Technologies, Inc (QuIC).  QuIC provides the world’s leading financial organisations with risk analytics solutions to test market and credit risk tolerance in financial portfolios and simulate risk at the enterprise level.

The acquisition will enable Markit to meet the growing demand for risk analytics and enterprise risk management services by combining its strengths in data and valuations with QuIC’s analytics expertise.  Markit and QuIC’s integrated platform will be well-positioned to offer a comprehensive solution for risk-related services spanning independent pricing, valuations and analytics across asset classes. 

QuIC will become part of Markit’s valuations and analytics services unit, and will continue to provide all of its existing high-quality services to clients throughout the financial industry.  Markit’s rich data set, which spans all major asset classes in the cash and over-the-counter derivative markets - including credit default swaps, bonds, loans, equities, commodities and rates - will become a valuable input into the QuIC Engine™, the high speed computational framework that powers QuIC’s solutions. 

Markit recently combined its valuations and analytics services - comprised of Markit’s Totem, Portfolio Valuations, Valuations Manager, Evaluated Bonds and Structured Finance businesses - under the direction of Executive Vice President Sal Naro.