Morgan Stanley, an American multinational investment bank, has managed to secure Francesco Ponti as its Vice President of Equity Derivatives Sales. Ponti will be working from the firm’s office in Paris starting this month, according to information on his LinkedIn.
In his new role, Ponti will be working in institutional structured derivatives for France. The new position sees him leaving Credit Suisse where he was an equity derivatives sales associate.
Francesco Ponti
Source: LinkedIn
Ponti worked with the firm from February 2013 up until September this year. At Credit Suisse, he managed a book of institutional clients based in France, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom. This included Tier-1 insurance companies, asset managers, pension funds and funds of funds.
Between June and July of 2012, Ponti also worked as a cash Equities proprietary trading summer analyst with the bank. During this time he implemented a statistical arbitrage trading strategy based on pairs trading.
A sign of things to come?
With the Brexit deadline fast approaching, out of all banking roles it is likely that sales jobs will be the first to move abroad. This is because salespeople advertising products to clients in the European Union (EU) will most likely need to physically be within the region to do so legally.
Although the motivation behind moving Ponti from London to France is not necessarily related to Brexit, it does feel like a sign of things to come. Financial authorities have been warning banks, brokers and every financial institution in between to be prepared for a so-called 'hard Brexit'.
Basically, they are warning financial companies not to rely on a transition period. At least, not until it is officially agreed upon instead of placing hopes on the arbitrary agreement it is at the moment.
Earlier this year, the president of Morgan Stanley, Colm Kelleher, said that the bank will be relocating some of its staff from London to Dublin, Paris and Frankfurt because of Brexit.
In June this year, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman provided more details on this by saying that the bank expects to move 4 - 500 jobs out of the UK as the nation breaks from the EU.
