LCH.Clearnet Group (LCH.Clearnet), the world’s leading independent clearinghouse, today announced it has appointed Daniel Maguire as the Head of SwapClear U.S., a newly created position that underscores the company’s commitment to serving the American market.
SwapClear is LCH.Clearnet’s global clearing service for OTC interest rate swaps (IRS), which has been live and active since 1999 and has been operating in the United States as a CFTC-regulated derivatives clearing organization since 2001. The 1 million trades in SwapClear have an aggregate notional principal amount of more than $300 trillion, with a further $67 trillion of cleared transactions removed through multilateral trade compression.
SwapClear is seeing U.S. end users move to clear IRS in advance of the implementation of Dodd-Frank, driven by their desire to reduce counterparty risk exposure.
“We are offering a tailor-made, U.S.-centric product that enables IRS users to establish multiple, liquid counterparty relationships through our organization,” Mr. Maguire said. “We are continuing to work with clients throughout North America as they establish futures commission merchant (FCM) relationships and clear through SwapClear.”
As an organization solely dedicated to clearing, LCH.Clearnet is singularly focused on providing clients a best-in-class clearing service. LCH.Clearnet is the only clearinghouse to have managed a significant OTC default, that being Lehman Brothers in 2008. During the default, Mr. Maguire was also responsible for the fixed income (RepoClear) default management close out, actively trading, hedging and transferring the Lehman Brothers’ RepoClear portfolio.
“It is important to recognize that clearing is not just risk management, post-trade processing and services offered in a ‘peace-time’ environment. The core of successful OTC clearing is sound risk management and robust default management that passes the test in ‘war-time,’ an actual default event,” said Mr. Maguire. “Our track record, including the successful close out of the Lehman portfolio, demonstrates our provenance and experience in handling major defaults of large OTC portfolios of risk – without losses to any other user of our clearinghouse.”
“As SwapClear continues to gain momentum in the U.S., it has become essential to have an on-the-ground leader to drive SwapClear’s expansion,” said Michael Davie, ceo of SwapClear. “Daniel, with his 12 years experience in derivatives, an extensive understanding of risk, default management and clearing’s nuances, is that leader.”
In addition, SwapClear’s U.S. team has rapidly grown over the past year, adding positions in legal, operations, risk, product, sales and regulatory affairs, with continued plans to grow. Clearing members have almost doubled in 2011 to reach 59.
Prior to this appointment, Mr. Maguire was SwapClear’s Executive Director of OTC Derivatives, Risk and Operations. He was previously a Vice President and Manager of Global Commodity Exotics and Hybrids Trade Support at JP Morgan. He first joined LCH.Clearnet in 1999 and was responsible for the implementation and subsequent extension of the end-to-end SwapClear service. He holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and public policy from Leeds Metropolitan University.
