Citi has poached a rising star trader from $17 billion hedge fund CQS for its revamped bond-trading unit

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Citi has poached a rising star trader from $17 billion hedge fund CQS for its revamped bond-trading unit

Ben Friedman Citi

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Ben Friedman has left CQS for Citigroup.

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  • Citi group is adding more young talent to its revamped bond-trading unit.
  • Over the summer, Citi hired 32-year-old Sam Berberian from Goldman Sachs to run junk bond trading.
  • Now, Citi is adding Ben Friedman, a late-20s standout portfolio manager at $17 billion hedge fund CQS, to work for Berberian, according to people familiar with the matter.

Citigroup has added another rising star to its new-look bond-trading unit.

In June, the company poached Sam Berberian, a coveted 32-year-old high-yield trader at Goldman Sachs, to run its junk-bond trading operation under Vikram Prasad, the head of credit trading.

Now, Citi is adding Ben Friedman, a late-20s standout portfolio manager at $17 billion hedge fund CQS, to work for Berberian, according to people familiar with the matter.

Citi, CQS and Friedman declined to comment.

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It's another big win for Citi's fixed income markets division, which is overseen by Mickey Bhatia and Joe Geraci and has been reloading talent since a recent spate of senior departures in its high-yield debt unit.

Citi is a top player in the fixed income, currency, and commodities business, ranking second behind JPMorgan Chase in 2017 and the first half of 2018, according to industry consultant Coalition.

It's a return to the sell-side for Friedman, who traded debt for Bank of America Merrill Lynch for four years before jumping to CQS in 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Friedman made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2017 at age 27, and at the time he was managing nearly $1 billion in high-yield and distressed debt at CQS, which raked in profits of $160 million last year, according to Financial News.

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