Veteran Citi trader in Singapore re-emerges at billionaire-run fund

Citi’s former head of emerging markets FX and rates trading for Asia (ex-Greater China), V Subbaraman, has resurfaced at BlueCrest Capital Management in Singapore. He left Citi’s Singapore office last September, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Subbaraman is now a portfolio manager at BlueCrest, the private investment firm that effectively serves as the family office of billionaire British founder Michael Platt, a former JP Morgan trader. BlueCrest, which chalked up gains of about 50% last year, splits its emerging markets (EM) team between New York, Geneva and Singapore.

The firm has a strong track record of poaching senior traders like Subbaraman from global banks in the city state and giving them portfolio manager jobs.

BlueCrest was a particularly aggressive recruiter in 2018. As we reported in October of that year, for example, Vipul Agarwal and Chiga Murayama, joined from Nomura and BNP Paribas, respectively. Tom Kong, BNPP’s head of G10 FX forwards/STIR trading, also came on board.

Subbaraman, who worked for Citi in India during his early career, was a managing director in interest rates trading at the US bank in Singapore between 2009 and 2012. He was then promoted to head of EM interest rates trading for Asia (ex-Greater China), a position he held for about four years.

In June 2016, Subbaraman took on his most recent Citi job, which gave him oversight of FX trading in addition to rates.

Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash

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