(Bloomberg) — Cantor Fitzgerald LP could ultimately almost double staff numbers at its European equities business over the next few years as the brokerage looks to expand its presence beyond Wall Street.
The broker has recruited Andrew Shortland, a former head of international equities at Jefferies Financial Group Inc. and chief executive officer at Olivetree Financial, and Massimiliano De Mattia, most recently head of program trading risk at Barclays Plc to lead an expansion. Shortland will become European head of equities and De Mattia will run European trading.
The broker currently employs about 40 people in the area, and expects that number to grow, Pascal Bandelier, global head of equities at Cantor, said in an interview. He expects to hire about 20 people into European equities in the next year or two and said headcount could even rise to around 75.
“We’ve been a little slow to build up our European franchise,” Bandelier said. “We should not be holding back and only playing for the U.S. investor base. There’s a lot of opportunity to grow into European family offices, hedge funds and long onlys.”
Cantor’s push comes a few months after the firm told Bloomberg News it was planning a major hiring spree. The company’s equities business has grown by more than 200% since 2017, Bandelier said in the October interview.
The closely-held broker has been on a tear helped by the boom in blank-check companies. Cantor is a top ten U.S. equity underwriter this year, having gained six places in the rankings compared to the same time in 2020, according to Bloomberg data. Five years ago, the firm barely made the top 30 in the Bloomberg rankings.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
