Knight Capital Group hired Robert Cestari and David Simek for its institutional fixed-income sales and trading group.
Cestari has been appointed managing director and head of CMBS and commercial real estate debt trading, while Simeck will join Knight as managing director and head of CMBS sales.
Both report to John Welde, managing director and head of structured products.
Previously, both Cestari and Simek worked at PrinceRidge Group.
At PrinceRidge, Cestari was the head of commercial real estate debt trading. Prior to this, he spent five years on the buy side at Apollo Real Estate Advisors and then with the firm’s affiliate Winthrop Realty Partners. He was the head of the CMBS trading and syndication desk at Nomura Securities before this stint.
Simek was previously head of sales and trading for CMBS and CDOs at PrinceRidge. Until that time, he was a managing director of portfolio management and trading at Highland Capital Management. Previously, he was a managing director within fixed-income sales for both Merrill Lynch and UBS. However, he originally began his career at Nomura Securities as managing director of fixed income sales and trading.
“As Knight continues to strategically build out our fixed income offering by adding products in demand by institutional clients, Robert and David will help spearhead our expansion into CMBS and Commercial Real Estate Debt Sales and Trading. Robert and David are seasoned professionals with years of experience in the industry. We are happy to have them on board to lead this effort,” said Al Lhota, co-head of Knight’s institutional fixed income group.
