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| Photo credit: Buck Ennis |
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| Please note: All information reflects age, title and company at date of publication. |
| Sunil Hirani, 39 |
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2006 |
| Trader profits via derivatives |
| Chief executive, Creditex |
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| By Aaron Elstein |
The heart of a Wall Street trader beat in Sunil Hirani even in his teenage years. When he was studying at Washington University in St. Louis, he used to buy unused meal plans near the end of the semester and then sell them at a slight markup to hungry fellow students.
"I had no idea at the time, but I was making markets, posting bids and offering prices on a bulletin board," says Mr. Hirani, a native of India who immigrated to Texas with his parents when he was 10.
Today, he uses the same ideas in much more complex areas. Creditex, a firm he started six years ago after working for a decade at Bankers Trust and Deutsche Bank, is now a leader in trading credit derivatives, a type of security that investment pros use to bet on the likelihood of corporate defaults. Credit derivatives have grown to an estimated $11 trillion market today from nothing in 1997.
Mr. Hirani says that his business, which is based in a Flatiron district loft, is growing even faster than the derivatives market. He doubled his company's staff last year, to 105, and sold an approximately 50% stake to a private equity firm for $60 million. But he's still not satisfied. His goal now is to automate credit derivatives trading in the United States, like he has in Europe, and rely less on his crew of brokers working the phones.
His backers say there's little doubt he'll succeed. "Sunil is engaging and tremendously energetic," says Tim Frost, a Creditex director. "At the same time, he can be flexible. He made changes to his business model when change was necessary." |
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