Hiring Nasdaq Stock Market Inc.'s chief information officer may signal that Citigroup Inc. means to beef up its electronic trading capabilities, analysts said Wednesday.
Steve Randich is to join Citi on Dec. 9 as the chief information officer of its corporate and investment banking division. He will head the team responsible for all software development at the division and report to Hans Morris, the division's chief financial officer and its head of operations for technology and general services, Citi said Wednesday.
Bob Greifeld, Nasdaq's president and chief executive officer, said in a press release that Mr. Randich, who is also its executive vice president for operations and technology, has been responsible for "the development of Nasdaq's aggressive technology roadmap."
Robert M. Hegarty, the managing director of security and investments for TowerGroup Inc., the Needham, Mass., market research unit of MasterCard International, said that Citi's hiring him is "a strong statement that they're really embracing the movement to electronic trading."
Mr. Randich will bring "a strong combination of knowledge of the business - the equity trading markets - and the knowledge of technology and how it's used in the business," Mr. Hegarty said.
David Easthope, an analyst for the Boston market research firm Celent Communications LLC, said that Mr. Randich "was a big fish at Nasdaq" who played an important role in consolidating its electronic trading platforms.
Nasdaq bought Brut LLC, which operates the Brut electronic communications network, in September of last year; the Brut network has since been integrated into the Nasdaq system. This year Nasdaq announced that it would buy Instinet Group Inc., which operates the Inet electronic communications network; Inet is also to be merged into its system.
Including Inet, Nasdaq would have a role in 28% of U.S. trades, Mr. Easthope said. The New York Stock Exchange Inc. would have 53% once pending mergers are completed, he said.
Mr. Randich is "very knowledgeable about technology, he's very knowledgeable about trading - and obviously, the post-merger landscape, he's very knowledgeable about that too," Mr. Easthope said.
But a memo to employees of Citi's corporate and investment banking division did not mention acquisitions or integrating new systems as part of Mr. Randich's job. The memo, which the company made available to American Banker, said he will focus on software development.
"Maybe he's sick and tired of consolidating these technology platforms and he wants to go after something new," Mr. Easthope said.
Last year Citi acquired Lava Trading Inc. of New York, which makes software that consolidates market data from electronic communications networks. The software is marketed to financial companies. Lava is now part of the Citi division that Mr. Randich will join.
Citi said it could not provide an executive to discuss Mr. Randich's duties. Staff at his Nasdaq office said he was not available.
Mr. Randich came to Nasdaq in 2000 as chief technology officer and became its CIO the next year. Earlier he was the CIO and an executive vice president at the Chicago Stock Exchange; still earlier he was a managing principal at International Business Machines Corp.'s global services unit.
Mr. Hegarty said automated electronic trading has gained momentum in this country during Mr. Randich's time at Nasdaq. Largely as a result, the number of trading personnel declined 20.5% from March 2000 to this July while the average daily trading volume at the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange Inc. rose 123.4%, he said.
