The curse of becoming the global head of fixed income trading at UBS
Would you like to be the global head of fixed income trading at UBS? The role appears to be vacant, but you might not want to look too hard at the fate of the previous two incumbents.
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As we were first to report earlier today, John Newman, the short-lived head of UBS's global fixed income trading business, is leaving the bank. Newman is seemingly not doing so of his own volition, but UBS isn't commenting on his exit, and nor is Newman himself, making it possible that he simply has a better job at a hedge fund.
Newman's exit, however, looks unusual in the context of another recent departure, Mark Tinworth - his predecessor as global head of fixed income trading. Tinworth also left the bank unwittingly in September during what Bloomberg described as a 'shake-up' in the markets business. Newman, who was Tinworth's boss as co-head of derivatives and solutions trading, was then appointed interim head of global fixed income trading. Now, Newman has also disappeared less than three months later.
The obvious question is why?
No one knows exactly. However, Tinworth is said to have been very popular internally.
Both Tinworth and Newman had been at UBS for a while. Tinworth joined in 2015 as global head of rates distribution from Citi. Newman spent his entire career at UBS after joining out of university in 2000 and rising through the ranks in FX.
With both men gone, it's not clear who will replace them as global head of fixed income trading, but the role might be considered to carry some risk. The decision on who gets to sit in the hot seat will seemingly be made in conjunction with Jason Barron, the head of global markets (who has an equities background) and Dushyant Chadha, Newman's former co-head of derivatives and solutions trading (who has an equities background, too).
At the very least, it seems that the exits of Tinworth and Newman were inspired by cost-cutting. UBS's rates trading business is comparatively small and rates desks everywhere have had a difficult year, although UBS seemed to buck the trend in Q3. By dispensing with Newman, UBS will have done away with the cost of a co-head, which will help as it tries to get the cost income ratio in the investment bank down from 84%.
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