UBS's star London trader may be familiar with these bidding wars
Where is Jonas Klink? Still on UBS's London rates trading desk. Maybe not for much longer, though: it seems that all sorts of places would like to hire him.
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Neither Klink nor UBS commented for this article, but as we noted in today's Morning Coffee, International Financing Review (IFR) is claiming that Klink and his small trading team doubled UBS's revenues from SSA and covered bond trading, to $80m last year. As a result of this, Klink himself is said to have become a hedge fund hiring target and the potential subject for a bidding war.
Unfortunately it's now too late for UBS to allocate a higher bonus to Klink for his efforts in 2025, but it may want to consider paying him more for next year. Klink is already thought to be well paid. Almost exactly two years ago, we reported that he was allegedly the subject of another bidding war when he joined UBS from Citi, with Citi counter-offering him and UBS upping its own offer to as much as $2m.
It's possible that Klink's initial package has now expired. IFR says hedge funds are now prowling Klink as they build their own covered bond and SSA desks.
This may be overstated, though. Although Global Capital reported last month that hedge funds now account for up to 15% of bids for sovereign supranational and agency (SSA) and said funds are setting up their own SSA teams, sources in the market say many funds are simply making do with the people they already have. "It's most people with broader backgrounds who are dipping their toes into covered bond and SSA trading in hedge funds," says one insider.
There are exceptions. As we reported last year, Point72 hired Bobby Previti, the ex-head of covered bond and SSA trading at Bank of America to build a pod in London. Huw Roberts, another ex-banking senior SSA trader is now sitting at Tudor in the UAE. And ex-Deutsche Bank and Nomura trader Jordan Griffiths was at Qube, but is thought to be enroute to Balynasy and on a non-compete, although this has not been confirmed.
It's possible that these funds might try to hire Klink. If they do, UBS might feel inclined to bid him back again. Both the bank and Klink should know the script.
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