OREANDA-NEWS.  June 06, 2013. Sberbank CIB, the corporate and investment banking unit of Sberbank of Russia, is pleased to announce the appointment of Francois Mantion as Head of Commodity Trading, Managing Director and Raymond Bird as Head of Strategic Equity Financing, GM Trading, Managing Director. Both appointments are in the Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities Division (FICC) division, a part of the Global Markets Department, and both Francois and Raymond will be based in Moscow.

Francois will join Sberbank CIB on June 5 and will report to Maxim Safonov, Head of Global Markets Department, Managing Director. Raymond joins on June 4 and will report both to Maxim Safonov and Timur Nasardinov, Head of the Equity Division, Managing Director.

Francois Mantion has over fifteen years of experience working in international commodity markets in London and New York. He joins from J.P. Morgan where he was most recently Global Head of Energy Market Risk, managing a global team of risk managers covering the financial and physical trading activity in oil, gas, power, coal and emissions. During his tenure at J.P. Morgan, where he had been since 1996, Mr. Mantion initially worked in FX and Commodity Derivatives Research before heading up the desk starting in 1999. Since then, he has held roles in FX and Commodity Structuring, before rising to become the Global Head of Commodity Structured Products Trading, where he was responsible for setting up the global team in this area.
Raymond Bird joins Sberbank CIB from RBS, where he had been since 2004. At RBS, he was responsible for trading and risk management, with roles overseeing the Equity Financing portfolio, basket execution, and algorithmic execution strategies. Most recently, between 2010 and 2012, Mr. Bird was based in Hong Kong as Head of Structured Equity Financing, during which time the Asia business significantly increased its proportion of global financing revenues. He has worked in trading since joining SBC/UBS in 1995 where he started in Equities research IT, then served as a trading project specialist in Chicago, New York, Zurich and London, before settling in London where he was appointed as Executive Director, European Equity Trading in 2001.

Maxim Safonov, Head of Global Markets Department, Managing Director, commented: “We are delighted to welcome Francois Mantion and Raymond Bird to our team. They both have extensive international experience across the equity and global commodities markets on which we can draw to further enhance the quality of our client offering. The depth of products and expertise housed within the FICC division means it has earned a distinguished track record and these latest hires to the team emphasise our ongoing commitment to the Global Markets division at Sberbank CIB.”

Commenting on his appointment, Francois Mantion said, “I am excited to be joining Sberbank CIB at such an interesting time in its development. As the leading market-maker for fixed income products in Russia, I look forward to working with the FICC team to develop the Commodity Trading proposition.”

Raymond Bird added: “I look forward to becoming part of the Sberbank CIB team. Given its growing reputation, both nationally and internationally, it is a great honour to manage the strategic financing trading book in the FICC division. I welcome the opportunity to build-up a strong team dedicated to strategic equity financing in order to provide our clients with the best platform possible.”

This appointment is the latest in a number of senior hires at Sberbank CIB. The Global Markets team has recently added a number of Managing Directors including Nikolai Medvedev as Senior Equity Sales, Albert Sagiryan as Head of FICC Structured Products Sales, Peter Urbanczyk as Head of FICC Sales, Americas, Steven Weller as Head of FX Trading, Bill Beller as Head of Options Trading Desk, Robert Hagon as Co-Head of Equity Sales Trading, Sberbank CIB (UK) Limited, Peter Holowka as Head of E-FX and Dean Tyler who was appointed as Head of International FICC Sales.