Macquarie's electronic-trading head Klinger exits

David Klinger has recently left Macquarie Securities in Hong Kong, where he had served as its head of Asian execution services since 2009.

Klinger was a specialist in electronic trading services. He was among the original group that pioneered algorithmic trading at Credit Suisse in Asia. He joined CS in 1999 and served as its head of Asia-Pacific execution. He left to lead the establishment of Liquidnet’s regional business.

Macquarie entered Asian equities trading in 2004 with the acquisition of ING’s regional equities desk. It went on to develop a range of trading algorithms popular among many of the buy-sides in the region experimenting with the new technology. This was on top of its bread-and-butter capabilities in sales trading and a traditional model of selling research.

Klinger’s position was created for him to drive the electronic side of the business, as well as to consolidate Macquarie’s existing businesses in portfolio trading, execution trading and financial engineering on to an integrated technology platform.

However, he has left with no successor slated. The people who had reported to Klinger will now report to Adam Zaki, regional head of sales trading in Hong Kong. Klinger’s ultimate report had been to Damien Hoult, global head of execution services, who is transferring from Hong Kong to New York.

Klinger says of his departure: “There’s a whole section of the industry that is maturing. It is harder to be up front [in electronic trading] without a large budget to throw at the technology.”

However, some people in the market say there could be more to the story. "Macquarie has an excellent product that's hard to kill," says a former buy-side client. "It doesn't need much hand-holding. I'm certain they have the resources. It's not that expensive; people are expensive."

The firm remains a top competitor in the electronic trading space and has transferred Hoult to New York on the grounds that its Asia-Pacific business is strong enough to merit a push into America, say people familiar with the move.

A native of Australia, Klinger is moving to Sydney and plans to remain involved in the Asian execution market from there.