UBS, the Swiss bank and wealth manager, has made several key hires for its fixed-income, currencies and commodities division.

An internal UBS memo obtained by WealthBriefing said: “Our strategic goal is to become a leading FICC franchise as measured by profitability, client ranking and market share. Our changes and appointments, along with others that will follow, represent a key step along the road to achieving this goal.”

Dimjtri Psyllidis, who joined the Swiss banking giant from Merrill Lynch, where he was co-head of FICC and member of the European executive committee, will be its new global head of macro, reporting to Carsten Kengeter and Jeffrey Mayer. He will also join the FICC executive board and will be responsible for all FX and rates trading globally.

Bobby Gerjarusak joined UBS from Goldman Sachs; he will be based in Hong Kong, and will be the firm’s head of FICC structuring in the Asia-Pacific area.

The firm also made key hires at its Stamford, Connecticut office in the US, where Anatoly Nakum will join from Barclays Capital to become head of investment grade trading. Also from Barclays Capital, Nahil Bayrasli will work in UBS's flow CDS business. Dan Brereton, who joins from BNP Paribas, will be the new head of high yield trading. Jeff Cahoon, from Deutsche Bank, will join the telecom team, while Todd Corsair, from Bear Sterns, will work as a credit analyst. They will all report to Sean Dowd.

The emerging market business will now be co-headed by Rajeev Misra and Ritesh Dutta. This change represents, according to the memo, a “further strengthening and underlining [of] our commitment to grow that business.”

In the same business, Jim Lanzilotti, who has previously been with SAC Capital Advisors and Lehman Brothers, will join as head of Latin America FX and rates trading, partnered with Drew Dragoumis, the new head of Latin America credit/sovereign trading.

Furthermore, Allan Grauer will join as senior LatAm sovereigns trader. He has previously worked at JPMorgan, Diamond Notch Asset Management and StormHarbour. Ashish Vaidya will become head of FICC trading in UBS’ Mumbai Branch, joining from HDFC bank.

The memo goes on to state that the Swiss bank has hired in Asia: Andreas Fugman, from JPMorgan, for EM structured rates; Anthony Chuah, from Standard Chartered, for its EM rates trading business; Daniel Brader, from Dresdner Bank, for EM FX option trading and Siddarth Mathur, from JPMorgan, who will work with UBS as EM rates strategist.

Former Nomura employee Kai Herbert has joined the bank as an FX trader in Zurich.

The company also made several hires within FICC distribution, including those of Andrew Crowston and Pablo Terpolilli, who have both been with Goldman Sachs previously, for its leveraged finance sales team in London.

Steve Murphy, who joins from Deutsche Bank, will also be based in London from where he will run UK rates real money clients.

Based in Frankfurt, Oliver Chappell, from Morgan Stanley, will become co-head of FICC Germany.

Also, as WealthBriefing has already reported, Mark Fox, from the firm's wealth management division, is now heading EM distribution in EMEA.

FICC distribution hires also took place in Asia, where Jerry Ifill from Merrill Lynch will now cover hedge funds for macro Asia and Karen Lo, from DEAM, will work with institutional clients. Both will be based in Hong Kong.

Rei Kawasaki joins the firm from Morgan Stanley, covering the institutional client business in Japan.

In addition, as already reported by this publication earlier this month, Chris DeMarco, who has been with Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns, will be the new client relationship director for hedge funds, based in Stamford.