Goldman Sachs has hired Guillaume Paulhac to join the bank's equity derivatives sales team covering France in Paris. Paulhac will be part of the team reporting to London-based Tom Groothaert, managing director, Europe, Middle East & Africa (Emea) equity derivatives sales, according to sources. Paulhac joins from Roland Berger and, previously, was a manager in equity derivatives sales at UBS in London.

The equity derivatives sales team in France is led by Marine Abiad (pictured), director of distribution for France, and increased its profile as a provider for an increasing number of distributors in France in 2017, including ABN Amro Private Bank France, Banque Neuflize-OBC, Barclays, Irbis Finance, Kepler Cheuvreux Solutions and Equitim.

The US bank was behind a total of 17 medium-term notes hedged by Goldman's financial engineering team marketed in France in 2017, and is also the bond provider for nine products open for subscription from different providers such as i-Kapital, UBS, Equitim, Barclays and Banque Neuflize-OBC aimed at French retail investors, according to SRP data.

Paulhac's appointment coincides with the departure of Rodd Ramsay, senior engineer at an executive director level in corporate treasury strategists at Goldman. Ramsay held a number of senior positions in the securities division, including head of corporate treasury strategies for Emea, global head of securities performance and analytics strategists, and head of equity derivative structuring strategists, Emea.

The strategies team has become increasingly important for the US bank and has doubled in size since 2014, with George Lee, a partner at the US bank, appointed chairman of technology, media and telecom and chief information officer in 2016.

In securities, the focus has shifted from modelling risk and pricing analytics to 'data management and analytics, including machine learning, artificial intelligence, program management and digital product design, in addition to quantitative sciences', according to Thalia Chryssikou, co-head of global sales strategies and structuring across fixed income, currencies and commodities and equities, in weekly briefing from the bank in January 2018. 'That shift, in part, reflects the broader changes that have reshaped the securities business where participants across the globe operate with growing information sets and communicate digitally,' said Chryssikou. 'Strategies now comprise 27% of the securities division at Goldman Sachs, up from 18% five years ago.'

The latest addition to the strategies team was Stefan Bollinger, former co-head of Emea equities sales, who was promoted to co-head of global sales strategies, alongside Chryssikou, formerly head of European interest rate products sales, in early 2017. Both Bollinger and Chryssikou report to Michael Daffey and Paul Russo, the bank's global co-chief operating officers of equities, and to Elisha Wiesel, the newly-appointed chief information officer.

Bollinger has been a driving force behind the partnership between Goldman Sachs Fund Solutions, a business within Goldman' Securities Division, and Amundi launched early in February, to manage Luxembourg-domiciled funds based on Goldman's proprietary systematic strategies and to expand its alternative investment funds and Ucits platforms targeted at institutional investors and financial intermediaries.

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