Some joy at BNP Paribas as controversial ex-trading boss joins rival
Francisco Oliveira has got a new job and in many ways it seems better than his old one.
Oliveira was the global head of macro and credit trading at BNP Paribas until his unwitting exit in September when the French bank “rationalised” some of its activities. He's now back, at SocGen, in Paris.
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Oliveira, who is also known as "Chico," is joining BNP’s main French rival in the French capital. He is presumably joining on the sort of French contract that means he will never be fired again. He will arrive on January 6th and will be co-head of global markets and head of fixed income and currencies.
While Oliveira is probably happy with the way things have turned out, some of his former colleagues are happy too. He doesn’t always appear to have been popular at BNP Paribas, although he was not without his fans there either.
“Francisco is knowledgeable and thorough and if he says something will be done, it will be done,” says one former colleague. “But he is more of a stick than a carrot guy and he can be political. I like him, though. He’s a tough old school trader,” he adds.
Oliveira spent nearly two decades at BNP Paribas, where he distinguished himself as an FX trader. A Brazilian, he began his career in New York before moving to London in 2018. He was seemingly popular with senior management at BNP Paribas until the macro trading business began performing poorly this year, at which point he was less popular than before.
Oliveira’s fans suggest that intimations of his unpopularity at BNP are merely sour grapes on behalf of the various people who left while he was there. The departures include: Adrien Averre, a former New York based head of rates who was latterly in the executive office for the team in London; Joe Squires, the head of DM rates sales in New York; Courtenay Watson, a flow rates trader in London who's left for Citi despite only being promoted to MD last year; Adrian Boehler, who went to UBS as head of macro sales in March; and Rob Lane, a long time FX trader at the bank who left in September.
The reasons for their exits are not clear and may have had nothing to do with Oliveira. However, there are grumbles “Francisco disrupted a lot of careers,” says one former colleague. “That was tolerated, while he was making money.” Oliveira's more credit-focused former co-head, Arne Groes, is staying at BNP.
At SocGen, Oliveira will work alongside Sylvain Cartier, who is currently co-head of the markets business, and will have Mohamed Braham as his deputy head of fixed income.
Some former colleagues at BNP Paribas say there was happiness when Oliveira left. They say, too, that there is happiness again now that he’s joined their main rival.
Others, however, says that Oliveira had his fans at BNP Paribas. One says he’s a big hire for SocGen: “This shows their intention to compete head on with BNP as the premier French bank in global markets,” says one. There are suggestions that some of Oliveira's lieutenants at BNP - like Neehal Shah and Spyridon Gkinis - may even move to SocGen with him.
SocGen declined to comment.
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