As chairman of New York asset-management firm Guggenheim Partners, former Bear Stearns CEO Alan Schwartz has made his first big hire — a move that some Wall Streeters interpret as being part of a larger effort to rebuild his lost brokerage empire.
Schwartz, who joined Guggenheim this summer, recently recruited Kenneth Savio, the former co-head of trading and sales at Bear Stearns, to build an equity-trading desk, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Guggenheim, which is primarily known for its asset-management business, had not previously traded equities, focusing instead on fixed income, sources said.
Savio, who was described by a friend as a “great guy” with the traditional Bear Stearns characteristics such as loyalty, has been told to “go hire people” to work on the desk, this person said.
Savio, who worked with Bear for 20 years prior to its weekend sale to JPMorgan Chase in March 2008, didn’t return several requests for comment.
A Guggenheim spokesman declined to comment.
But a person familiar with the matter said Schwartz has ambitions to “hire people from across the board” to rebuild Guggenheim’s lesser-known investment banking, research and brokerage divisions into “the next Bear Stearns.”
Schwartz was Bear’s last CEO before the bank imploded and was sold to JPMorgan in a deal orchestrated by the Federal Reserve. He had only been CEO since January 2008, taking over for the disgraced Jimmy Cayne, who was accused of dillydallying as the financial crisis set in and Bear’s future was cast in doubt.
Smaller brokerages of all kinds are finding it easier to gain momentum in business and in trading following the near collapse of Wall Street, sources said.
They’re filling in the gaps left by fallen firms like Bear and Lehman Brothers, as well as benefiting from a lack of public offerings and other investment-banking business that’s traditionally the domain of larger firms. kaja.whitehouse@nypost.com