Knight Capital Group didn’t have to look very far to find the new heads of its global fixed-income business.
Both Robert Lyons and Alan Lhota will take over the reigns for the bond division from James Smyth, a firm executive vice president, who was put in place to serve as the interim head of global fixed-income in July. At the time, the firm revealed that Gary Katcher, executive vice president and head of global institutional fixed income, was resigning. Reasoning for his July 31 departure was not unavailable, however.
Previously, in 2010, Lyons joined the Jersey City, N.J.-based firm “to establish and grow Knight’s capital markets effort.” Alternately, Lhota linked up with the firm in 2009 when he was appointed to lead its U.S. high yield, distressed and bank loan sales division, the Wednesday announcement indicated.
At press time, a Knight Capital spokesperson noted that there are no new changes expected to Lyons and Lhota’s prior roles. Also, she noted that Smyth will resume his executive vice president duties on March 31 when the change takes effect.
As background to the firm’s creation, Katcher joined Knight Capital in July 2008 when the firm acquired Libertas Holdings; it was later renamed Knight Libertas. He is credited with founding Knight Libertas, the firm said previously.
In July, as Katcher was looking “forward to the next challenge in [his] career,” he noted that that he had “assembled a great team and Knight now has the right people and products in place to continue to grow as market conditions improve.”
Coming off this strong footing, Thomas Joyce, Knight Capital Group chairman and CEO, said March 30 that “Bob and Al will continue the momentum we've gained from key adjustments we've made to Knight's institutional fixed-income business as well as from the continuing success of our electronic fixed-income offering.”
Presently, the firm’s institutional fixed-income team “provides buy-side firms with research, sales and trading across a broad range of fixed-income securities including ABS/MBS, high yield/distressed, investment grade, syndicated bank loans, hybrid securities, convertible bonds, municipal securities, private placements and corporate/sovereign emerging markets.”
