LiquidnetÆs David Klinger surfaces at Macquarie

David Klinger, who had helped Liquidnet start its Asian operations but left the company earlier this year, has joined Macquarie Securities, the broking arm of Macquarie Group.

Klinger, one of the region's veterans in electronic trading, enters a newly created role as executive director and head of execution services for Asia. Based in Hong Kong, he will be responsible for the firm's suite of execution products and services.

Macquarie Securities already provides electronic execution, portfolio trading services, execution trading and financial engineering. Klinger is coming in to consolidate these services, which suggests the firm is making a push in this area.

The company's electronic trading algorithms are already well regarded by buy-side traders, according to a survey of the buy-side conducted by AsianInvestor (which appears in our November edition, due out this week). Macquarie Group entered this space in Asia in 2004 when it acquired the Asian equities business of ING.

Yesterday was Klinger's first day on the job and he was unable to discuss in detail his new position. "In a nutshell, I joined Macquarie because they are really committed to building a top-tier execution platform supported by state-of-the-art technology," he says. "The role I have taken will enable Macquarie to consolidate several different areas into an overall execution platform."

He reports to Mark Duncan, head of Macquarie Securities.

Klinger joined Liquidnet three years ago, and built it into a leading alternative trading system for block trading exclusively among buy-side desks. Before that, he ran the Asia-Pacific execution team at Credit Suisse, which he joined in 1999.

Klinger has also worked for a number of Australian firms, including McIntosh Securities, where he performed a variety of roles; HSBC Australia; and Westpac Investment Management.