Bernard Dan, the former head of the Chicago Board of Trade and brokerage company MF Global Holdings, has joined the proprietary trading firm Sun Holdings LLC as president.
The move sees Dan, a major figure in listed derivatives markets, rejoin the financial services industry eight months after departing MF Global for personal reasons.
Chicago-based Sun Holdings, which has its headquarters a few blocks from the historic Chicago Board of Trade building, is parent of Sun Trading, a registered U.S. broker-dealer focused on market making activities across a range of asset classes.
The eight-year-old firm, founded by former Chicago Board Options Exchange trader Jeff Wigley, uses algorithm-driven electronic trading strategies and also maintains a London arm.
“We are pleased to have Bernie join our management team as president of Sun Holdings LLC,” said Wigley in a statement Thursday. “He brings a breadth of experience in financial markets and leadership to our organization.”
Dan, 49, declined to comment on his responsibilities as president.
Joining Sun this week, Dan represents the most recent in a string of exchange executives joining privately held trading groups. Getco LLC, another Chicago-based electronic trading firm, this year has hired two senior NYSE Euronext executives to round out operations on the New York Stock Exchange floor and in Europe.
In 2009, several high-level trading executives at Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. departed to join New York-based trading houses.
Dan, who led the CBOT from 2002 until its 2007 merger with CME Group Inc., already served as an advisory board member for Sun Trading.
The new position reunites Dan with Christopher Malo, formerly the CBOT’s head of business development, who joined Sun in June 2008 as chief financial officer.
Dan left the 150-year-old Chicago Board of Trade shortly after its July 2007 takeover by crosstown rival CME, an $11.3 billion deal that helped vault the combined CME Group to its current position as the world’s largest derivatives exchange operator by volume.
Prior to leading the CBOT, Dan for 16 years was president and CEO of Cargill Investor Services, the futures and commodity brokerage arm of the agribusiness company.
In June 2008 he was brought aboard MF Global, among the biggest futures brokers globally, to help stabilize the company following a rogue trading scandal that wiped out more than 90 percent of MF Global’s market value and prompted a dilutive refinancing.
Dan took on the top role at MF Global the following October upon the exit of former CEO Kevin Davis, and presided over efforts to strengthen risk management and diversify the firm into areas like asset management and prime dealing in U.S. Treasury auctions.
His tenure there ended in late March of this year with an abrupt resignation for personal reasons, and his replacement by Jon Corzine, the former New Jersey governor and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. chairman. Corzine, who seeks to build MF Global into a full-fledged investment bank, has continued many of Dan’s expansion projects.
