[ by Howard Haykin ]

The Global Electronic Trading Company, or GETCO, which is acquiring the Knight Capital Group, announced its management lineup for the combined company - and most of the top posts will be filled with current GETCO executives.  It was announced in December that GETCO CEO Daniel Coleman would head the combined firm, while Knight CEO Thomas Joyce will serve as Executive Chairman of the Board, and Knight COO Steven Bisgay would become CFO. 

Thus, Senior Management at the Combined GETCO-Knight Capital will look like this:

CEO Daniel Coleman
COO Darren Mast
CFO Steven Bisgay
Executive Chairman Thomas Joyce

According to filings with the SEC, the remaining members of management will include:

From GETCO

• Jerry Dark – Chief HR Officer
• John DiBacco – Global Head of Equities Trading ¹
• Darren Mast – COO;  Interim Head of Fixed Income, Currencies & Commodities
• John McCarthy – General Counsel
• Farid Moslehi – Head of Asia
• Nick Ogurtsov – CRO (Risk)
• Jon Ross – CTO (Technology)
• Robert Smith – Head of Europe

From Knight

• Albert Maasland – Head of Global Execution Services and Platforms
• George Sohos – Global Head of Client Market Making

Note 1:   Dibacco, is the banker who supervised the UBS London 'rogue trader' Kweku Adoboli, who lost $2.3Bn on so-called 'unauthorized' trading.  DiBacco was terminated by UBS for failing to properly supervise Adoboli, as reported by FT.com.  DiBacco disagreed with UBS’s assessment of his performance.

CEO Coleman had this to say about the appointments:  "The senior management team that we are announcing today possesses the expertise to successfully integrate our two organizations, develop new and innovative products and, most importantly, serve the needs of our clients across multiple asset classes and time zones."

GETCO, Top Bidder.   Knight suffered a disastrous trading glitch on 8/1/12, flooding the market with erroneous orders.  The firm acquired several billion dollars worth of securities over a 45-minute period.  After winding down the positions, Knight stood with a $462Mn loss that required rescue funding from several firms - one of which was GETCO.  Subsequently, GETCO beat out Virtu Financial to take ownership this once dominant electronic market maker.  The trading glitch was attributed to a “large software bug’’ in a system rolled out that very morning on 8/1/12  - timed by CEO Joyce to upstage the launch of a new Retail Liquidity Program on the NYSE. 

[ C-I Note:  Thank goodness Tom Joyce will not have responsibility for day-to-day operations of the combined firm - not after nearly destroying the preeminent market maker with his ill-fated display of hubris. ]

GETCO later bested Virtu Financial, in bidding to take over the once rock-solid electronic market maker.
In announcing the management changes, GETCO and Knight, however, reaffirmed their commitment to the use of high-speed technology in all their trading-related activities.
The two firms tolds investors that their intent was to become “the leading technology-driven
financial services firm, providing multi-asset class trading solutions to our clients around the world’’ and that they would, as a combined company, be “technology-leveraged in everything that we do.’’
 
Profile of  GETCO.

• BUSINESS:   High-speed algorithmic trading, market making

• MARKETS:  Equities, equity options, commodities, Forex

• REGIONS:  N. America, S. America, Europe, Asia

• VENUES:  CME, EUREX, NYSE Arca Options, BATS, Nasdaq, Nasdaq Options, Chi-X, BrokerTec, eSpeed

• FOUNDED:  1999

• EMPLOYEES:  400

• OFFICES:  New York, Chicago, London, Singapore

• REVENUES:  $425Mn in 2012  vs. $719Mn in 2011.  [for 1st 9 months of fiscal year]

• NET INCOME:  $245Mn in 2012  vs.  $135Mn in 2011.  [for 1st 9 months of fiscal year]

 
KNIGHT CAPITAL

• MARKET CAP:   $656.3 billion (Feb. 20, 2013)

• BUSINESS:   Electronic trading, market making

• MARKETS:  Equities, fixed income, forex, futures, options

• VOLUMES:  

-> U.S. equities: $21Bn (November)
-> 128,000 shares a second, 19,000 equities traded
-> Forex:   $22Bn (November)

• REVENUES:  $448Mn in 2012  vs.  $1.1Bn in 2011.   [for 1st 9 months of fiscal year]
• NET LOSS:  $354Mn in 2012  vs.  $75Mn Profit in 2011.    [for 1st 9 months of fiscal year]
• EMPLOYEES:  1,545
• HEADQUARTERS:  Jersey City, NJ

For further details, go to:  [ Traders Magazine, 2/21/13 ].