Citadel Securities and Jane Street may be booming, but it seems that another algorithmic trading firm is not.
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London-based Maven Securities is understood to have closed its Sydney office on the 56th floor of Martin Place. On Maven’s website, the office is suite 56.02; that space is currently advertised as available and open to inquiries on realcommercial.com.au. The Sydney office is home to senior figures like Maven’s head of systematic alpha, Richard Aked, though he appears to still be working at the company.
Accounts published on Companies House this February show Maven had 241 employees on average in the previous 12 months, down from 246 the year before that. They also show that the firm made a £2.5m ($3.1m) loss last year, and a £2m loss the year before.
People have been leaving Maven, voluntarily or not. Cadgas Yalcin, a partner who joined in 2012, left last May to create his own trading firm, Algorium. Stephen Warr, head of tech for systematic alpha, left last March for risk management firm Spiderrock, and Brás Patta, tech lead for FPGAs, left in October for FPGA design firm Adiuvo. Veteran C++ developer Anthony Peacock left for Jane Street last January. Maven’s office near Liverpool Street is allegedly feeling roomy.
It’s not all outgoings at Maven, though. Last month, it added portfolio manager Paul Hadley from Regal Funds Management for its Hong Kong office. It also hired a new chief risk officer, Stephen Taylor, from WhiteSand Consulting Services.
Insiders say Maven is refocusing on its core business. The “original DNA” of Maven was built on the options market, and returning its focus to that has reportedly been well received by employees.
Staying more diminutive has its perks. Jane Street has been expanding massively and now has more than 2600 employees, but some say the culture there is being diluted.
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