Oppenheimer adds risk arbitrage team for expected recovery in M&A

By Susanna Moon

Chicago, Oct. 5 - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. said it hired a team of four experienced professionals to help support clients in the risk-arbitrage space as markets make a rebound.

Jamie Axford is head of the newly formed agency risk arbitrage department. He joined Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in the 1990s as a member of its U.S. risk arbitrage team. In 2003, he helped found Cantor Fitzgerald's risk arbitrage desk.

Cliff Ackers will cover accounts and serve as a spread and arbitrage trader. He has worked at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, Societe Generale and Lehman Brothers, now Barclays Capital, where he headed event-driven sector trading.

Greg Lantz will assume the role of desk analyst to serve the company's clients, sales force and trading desk. He began his career at Tribeca Investments, worked at Severn River Capital and RockView Capital and ran the merger arbitrage book for Aristeia Capital.

Chris Guastello will cover accounts and also back up Ackers in spread trading operations. He began his career as a merger arbitrage spread trader at Source Trading, was the event-driven and convertible arbitrage trader for Severn River Capital and joined Axford at Cantor Fitzgerald in 2008.

"Most observers agree we have moved somewhere beyond the trough in merger activity we experienced during the first-half of 2009," said Charles Holmes, head of Oppenheimer's equity group, which provides an opportunity for Oppenheimer to enter this market for its institutional clients.

Mergers and acquisitions totaled $60 billion for announced deals in terms of market capitalization in the second quarter, versus $500 billion in the first quarter of 2007, he noted in a press release.

Oppenheimer & Co., a principal subsidiary of Oppenheimer Holdings Inc., is a New York-based financial services firm.

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