Credit Suisse made a big hire from State Street as it looks to beef up its stock trading team

Reuters

Credit Suisse nabbed a 23-year veteran of the buy side as it invests more resources in its equities team.
Chris Rice joined Credit Suisse as global head of execution strategy after spending more than two decades at State Street Global Advisors, according to an internal memo seen by Business Insider.
In March, Credit Suisse poached Danielle Johnson, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, to co-run its Americas equities business.

Credit Suisse recently made a senior hire to its equities team in what has been a string of appointments and strategy decisions for the Swiss bank all aimed at growing its stock trading business.

Chris Rice was named global head of execution strategy for Credit Suisse in recent weeks, according to an internal memo seen by Business Insider. Rice comes to Credit Suisse from State Street Global Advisors, where he most recently served as the $2.5 trillion asset manager’s global head of trading.

Credit Suisse still lags behind stock trading leaders like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan. According to Bloomberg data, the Swiss bank ranked 7th among banks’ equity sales and trading revenue in 2018, with revenue dropping 2% last year.

Rice, who spent 23 years at State Street, brings valuable experience from his time spent on the buy side to the Swiss bank. As global head of trading, Rice was responsible for State Street’s equity, currency, and fixed income trading operations. Previously, he was involved in the asset manager’s equity derivatives trading, transaction cost research and the development and implementation of its electronic trading platforms.

At Credit Suisse he’ll report to Anthony Abenante, the bank’s global head of execution services.

Based in Boston, Rice will also serve as the co-head of the bank’s office, along with Richard Blond, a managing director at Credit Suisse. In that role, Rice will report to the co-heads of the Americas equities business, Paul Galietto and the recently-hired Danielle Johnson.

Johnson, who starts in June, is another nod towards Credit Suisse’s push to build out its stock-trading business. A former managing director at Goldman Sachs’ client-relationship-management group, Credit Suisse poached her in March, as reported by Bloomberg.

Lucy Baldwin, a former executive at Bank of America, also joined Credit Suisse in March, serving as global head of equity sales.

Additional hires in March include Charlie Whitlock, who joined as head of advanced execution services sales for the Americas, leaving his role as head of US sales at broker ITG. In 2016, Whitlock, who was at JPMorgan at the time, was rated the top electronic trading salesperson in a survey conducted by Institutional Investor.

In October, Business Insider reported Credit Suisse had introduced a central risk book over the past 12 months in an effort to offer bigger equity trades to its clients.

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