Quitting a big investment bank after decades in the industry to be your own boss is the trend of 2017. Investment bankers are launching their own advisory boutiques, while senior traders are starting hedge funds, even if the risks of doing so now are massively higher.
Now senior salesman are getting in on the act. Tahir Ali Wahid, who was a managing director and head of European banks and credit solutions coverage sales at Credit Suisse in London until December last year, has just launched his own advisory boutique in Sloane Square, according to regulatory filings.
Wahid spent his entire finance career at Credit Suisse, having joined in 1999 after graduating from Oxford University with BA in Philosophy, Economics, and Politics.
Wahid has just launched SSP (Strategic Solutions Partnership) Global, which he describes on his LinkedIn profile as offering origination, advisory and capital sourcing advice.
He left Credit Suisse at the end of last year as part of the bank’s ongoing restructuring of its UK operations that has seen the departure of various senior markets staff. As we reported in June, Jerome Henrion, who headed the bank’s EMEA solutions group, left the Swiss bank and will join M&G Investments as a portfolio manager in August. Andrea Negri, a managing director and head of equity derivative sales in Europe, and Walter Rotondo, head of European equity derivatives convertibles trading, both also departed at the end of last year.
Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam said during Friday’s Q2 results call that the bank’s “efforts to right-size and restructure global markets” were “having an impact”. In other words, the thousands of job cuts that have reduced compensation expenses have helped to cushion the blow of reduced revenues within the bank’s sales and trading division.
Wahid’s decision to go it alone rather than join another big financial institution is in line with a trend among senior investment bankers to launch their own firms. Recently, Nick Hassall, who was head of consumer investment banking at UBS, has started Sequor Partners Limited, while James Simpson, the former co-head of advisory for EMEA at HSBC, teamed up with Matteo Canonaco, the former head of financial sponsors, sovereign wealth funds and IPC coverage at the bank, to launch a private equity boutique called DuCanon Capital Partners.
Contact: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com
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