Optiver APAC sacks CEO
Luke McElnea was heralded as CEO at Optiver Asia Pacific, because he was coming from the IT. He succeeded Paul Hilgers as CEO of Optiver APAC in Sydney. Hilgers went to lead the Optiver group from the headquarters in Amsterdam.
Milestone
Optiver’s annual report calls it a milestone that a developer became the chief in Australia. “It’s indicative of Optiver’s culture”, it says in the report (which is a good read btw). Usually traders have more luck to get the CEO role. And become victims of the Peter Principle. As the Dutch football coach Co Adriaanse was quoted when Marco van Basten became coach ; “A good horse isn’t necessarily a good horseman”.
Shown the door
Back to Luke McElnea. Alas. It didn’t work out. Within two years at the job, he was shown the door. Developer turned CEO turned exit. Painful for a company milestone. The recent departure of the CRO (Chief Risk Officer) may have got something to do with it. Key people leaving doesn’t look good for management.
Of course, a lot of senior partners at Optiver have left (or been made to leave) this year. Not necessarily a bad thing, to judge people by their (recent) contribution to the firm. Hilgers is not afraid to take action.
Profits up at Optiver APAC
The results for the Optiver will probably beat last year’s. The trading income from the APAC region alone has been close to €500 million. Last year, the whole Optiver group earned €805 million (comparing revenues, not profits). The group regional headquarters is in Sydney, but there are offices too in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The mainland China office employs around 25 people, down from 35 earlier this year.
Merry Christmas and happy 2016
With a few days left, we can say it was a very interesting year. I’m sure next year will have interesting developments as well. Best wishes to everybody, and take it easy with the fireworks!
Funny you mention Co Adriaanse. His son is a trader at (I believe) Market Wizards. Nice fella and very good trader.
How much are firms like Teza, Jump and Tower making in years like this?
Who thinks that IMC will finally beat Optiver in revenues for year 2015?
I do
When will Tibra show the door to Tim Berry?
Don’t forget the son of Lee Touwers…..
Since when is a CRO key staff?
Rumor has it most if not all of the major profit making employees from Optiver APAC are jumping ship in the new year and going to Autumn Compass the new competitor on the Sydney MM scene.
Some are even comparing them to the early days of Tibra, sort of a Tibra 2.0 (ignoring Maven of course) if you will.
Maven is doing great as is Tibra nowadays, they made 59 mln profit (net Trading income would have been 150 mln or so)
Maven is a juggernaut, with Ian toon and Ivan Koedjikov at the helm that was to be expected.
Thanks Danny, and how are you these days? heard you are making a comeback?
who is Autumn Compass?
https://connectonline.asic.gov.au/RegistrySearch/faces/landing/panelSearch.jspx?searchType=OrgAndBusNm&searchText=607768865&_adf.ctrl-state=aya70uv9z_64
always thought Vivienne Court would be FTD 2.0 I guess times are a changing.
Maven makes most of its money with dividend trades, ansvrather riskt ones at that. Expext then to collapse in a few years time
Opitiver APAC sure gets treated well – consistently makes the most profit and consistently gets the least partners.
who are the Sydney quants that are leaving after the next bonus? where are they moving to?
The Dutch changed the global bonus pool to suit their office when they were the big performers
I bet they got rid of it once Optiver APAC started cleaning up
I heard some rumours about Piet Saman, Bennie Tiggeloven, Ferry Kuhlman and Ko de Kraker leaving the Sydney office soon. Not hundred percent sure though. I believe they started in the Amsterdam office, but later went to join Optiver APAC.
some are moving to Jump
seems like everyone is moving to jump in these days…
So to wrap up: After Optiver APAC having made a ginormous amount of money in 2015, the most valued and profit producing principles are fleeing either:
To start there own market makers
To start working at competitors (Jump and Virtu)
Take it easy on the sunny Sydney beaches
Sounds somewhat reasonable, and a profitable 2016 to all!
another purge – who will be next?
All of Sydney. Paul is firing Australia now.
The story is quite simple: Optiver is moving its regional offices from Sydney to Hong Kong. Internally rumblings from it’s Sydney HR are that about half the Sydney workforce will be let go by end of 2016, Some people will be offered transfers to the HK offices and the rest will be recruited locally in HK.
As usual management hasn’t been upfront with employees, so most people will unfortunately not be aware of their impending unemployment status.
An article about the move: http://goo.gl/M5D0Zv
Ah! So that’s why Daniel Weinberg was spotted apartment hunting in Hong Kong last Saturday. Before Optiver only had a responsible officer in HK and it looked unlikely that this Senior Partner would move and do only that.
Here’s the article mentioned above:
Dutch financial markets trader Optiver has parted ways with its Asia-Pacific chief executive Luke McElnea amid speculation it is set to move its regional headquarters from Sydney to Hong Kong.
Mr McElnea left by mutual agreement after ?differing opinion about the direction of the Asia Pacific region?? according an email sent to shocked staff in Sydney.
Optiver chief financial officer Mark Stevens and head of trading Wouter Stinis were appointed as temporary replacements.
The management changes came despite the Asia-Pacific region delivering its most profitable year for Optiver, according to sources.
Mr McElnea?s exit is the latest in a run of management changes at the firm, with his deputy Daniel Weinberg moving to Hong Kong with Optiver earlier this year.
Mr McElnea ran the Sydney office from early 2014 when he replaced Paul Hilgers, who was promoted to the three-man Amsterdam-based management board.
A month earlier Mr Hilgers had overseen a decision to cease trading the Australian markets, in which Optiver had been a market maker in exchange-traded options and other financial products.
Observers said Mr McElnea?s departure could be linked to a rumoured move by Optiver to relocate its regional office to Hong Kong, closer to the Asian markets that delivered such a profitable year for the firm.
Optiver has been based in Sydney since 1996 and employs 240 staff, including traders and information technology experts maintaining high-speed trading systems for financial markets across the region, including offices in Shanghai and Taiwan.
The firm made a point of staying close to Australia?s universities as it sought bright, highly qualified people to trade markets and update its trading systems.
A spokesman for Optiver was not available for comment.
Optiver is doing a reverse IMC. IMC moved Hong Kong to Sydney back then.
Moving from Sydney to Hong Kong is also known as a Kokomo.
how many people are in the Sydney office?
What an absolute load of rubbish above
Weinberg is an external relations guy so it makes sense for him to be in Asia
Mcelnea was a mistake that was rectified by hilgers
There are 200 staff in the Sydney office and no way are they moving, the chairman and hilgers stated that at the annual meeting
Observers say
What a load of rubbish
As if Luke wouldn’t move to HK if he was still wanted
Who has ever heard of CEO fired because they are moving
As a naive graduate meant to start as a trainee trader at the Sydney Optiver office soon, how worried should I be that I won’t have a job at the end of this year? I have no idea what I’d do with my life…
I’m a senior s/w engineer at the Optiver Sydney offices. Since about October we’ve been asking certain candidates applying for roles in the Sydney offices if they’d ever consider working in the HK offices.
If you were asked such a question or similar during your interviews I wouldn’t worry too much as you’ll probably get an offer for a transfer to HK, otherwise you were probably a stopgap hire.
As always there’s other options like SIG, Tibra, Autumn Compass, Epoch Capital, Liquid, Eclipse etc. I’m pretty sure if you can prove you were hired by Optiver you’d easily get at Job at one of those firms.
My suggestion is get as much experience as you can from the opportunity.
“I’m a senior s/w engineer at the Optiver Sydney offices”
You do know that your website has been visible throughout the thread, right autumncompass.com? It’s pretty transparent that you’re trying to get folks at Optiver to jump ship to your MM by peddling this HK canard. Not very professional.
so who is Autumn Compass?
Stressed Grad
1. Why would they go through the hassle of interviewing you, training you for 6 months, then firing you before youve given them any benefit for their time and money?
2. Why would they risk losing their employees to other firms by leaving for Hong Kong after apparently making “a ginormous amount of money” last year?
3. Theres other things in life than trading 🙂
Optiver seems to still be going strong in Sydney as they’ve just advertised for a new opening in their C++ Algorithmic Trading Group:
http://www.seek.com.au/job/30244125
They’re obviously very anxious to increase head count in Sydney.