SMBC Nikko Securities America, Inc., a member of SMBC Group, has announced a number of significant hires across the equity execution business.

The new hires will help strengthen high- and low-touch trading relationships for Japanese equities with North American clients. They will also focus on the continued growth of the U.S. equity liquidity pool with global clients.

Allen Jordan joins as an Executive Director focused on U.S. equity sales trading. Before joining the firm, Mr Jordan was with KeyBank for three years, where he was focused on high-touch sales trading U.S. equities. Prior to KeyBank, he spent a decade each at Macquarie and Bear Stearns, developing his existing relationships and product knowledge of low- and high-touch trading with both U.S. and international equities.

Marc Rosa joins as an Executive Director and specialist in international equity sales trading, most recently covering Asia-Pacific for North American clients at Macquarie for 18 years. He brings extensive client relationships across multiple execution channels, where he is viewed as an APAC expert in market structure. Mr Rosa will also be responsible for leveraging his relationships for U.S. equity sales trading, low-touch sales of Japanese equities, and introducing new offerings, such as ADR conversions and program trading.

Ted Langworthy joins as an Executive Director and Head of the Equity Finance team. He spent the past two decades in securities lending and equity financing with several global financial institutions, including Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, and HSBC, where he delivered an array of financing products and synthetic financing solutions to clients.

The team plans to leverage SMBC’s strong balance sheet and capital base to deliver added liquidity to the securities lending and funding markets. They will accomplish this through secured financing transactions and eventually leveraging SMBC Nikko’s vast Japanese retail onshore network. The firm’s platform will service interdealer brokers, work with agency and principal lenders, and coordinate with the launch of the synthetic prime brokerage—targeted for Q3 2023—in order to offer what it can to hedge fund clients.