Coverage: Ex-Deutsche co-CEO becomes Cantor president

Anshu Jain, who left his position as co-CEO of Deutsche Bank a year ago, has been named president of bond trader Cantor Fitzgerald.

Landon Thomas Jr. of the New York Times writes:

The appointment, which was announced in an internal email on New Year’s Day by Cantor’s chairman and chief executive, Howard Lutnick, comes 18 months after Mr. Jain resigned under pressure from his job as co-chief executive of Germany’s largest bank as concerns mounted over Deutsche’s financial health and the many investigations it was facing. A Cantor spokeswoman confirmed the appointment on Monday.

Mr. Jain, 53, was among a small group of Merrill Lynch executives who were persuaded to join Deutsche in 1995, with a mandate to build an investment bank that would challenge large firms like Barclays, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase.

Deutsche’s global markets division would do exactly that during its first 10 years in existence, becoming a market leader in derivatives, fixed income and foreign currency sales and trading.

But its hard-charging culture of pursuing profits and risk — and paying its bankers and traders magnificent sums along the way — proved to be the division’s undoing in the years after the financial crisis.

Jenny Strasburg of the Wall Street Journal reports that Jain’s task will be to expand Cantor’s business:

In his newly created position as group-level president, Mr. Jain will help oversee Cantor’s companywide strategy and expansion efforts in areas including fixed-income and equities trading and prime brokerage, Howard Lutnick, the New York-based firm’s CEO and chairman, said in an interview Monday.

Mr. Jain will be based in London, and will spend a lot of time in the U.S. and Asia.

“He has vast knowledge and experience across the entire global financial footprint,” Mr. Lutnick said. “He’s my partner at the parent company, so his roles are very much vision, direction and then helping build the teams to execute. It’s not an operating role.”

Mr. Jain said in a press release from Cantor that he has admired Mr. Lutnick’s leadership and Cantor’s growth since 2001, and was attracted by the firm’s position as a leading nonbank financial company with “cutting-edge technology and a global reach.”

Mr. Lutnick said the company “will be raising significant amounts of capital” to expand. Cantor’s parent company is private, but portions of its businesses are publicly traded, including BGC Partners, a London-based brokerage.

Ben McLannahan and Laura Noonan of the Financial Times examined Jain’s departure from Deutsche Bank:

The appointment, effective next week, brings an end to a spell on the sidelines for Mr Jain, 53, one of the most colourful figures in the investment-banking industry during a long career at Merrill Lynch and Deutsche.

Mr Jain oversaw a period of rapid growth at Germany’s largest bank, particularly in the markets business where he cut his teeth. His three-year spell at the helm ended unhappily in 2015, however, amid investor unrest over the direction of the bank he had headed with Jürgen Fitschen. Deutsche faced heavy criticism for not reacting swiftly enough to curtail its outsized trading business, and for failing to control costs.

Mr Jain’s management team unveiled a plan for a strategic revamp in April 2015, but two months later the bank announced both co-CEOs would make way for a new boss, John Cryan.

Since then Mr Jain has kept a mostly low profile, resurfacing as an adviser to SoFi, the San Francisco-based online lender, almost a year ago.

Mr Jain is the latest of a series of recently departed European bank bosses to embark on new careers. Bob Diamond, former head of Barclays, now runs a Park Avenue boutique, Atlas Merchant Capital. Credit Suisse’s former chief executive Brady Dougan — who stepped down in mid-2015 — is also set to open a new merchant bank early this year, according to reports.