NEW YORK: Goldman Sachs Group hired corporate-debt traders Thomas Malafronte and Deets Sankaranarayan from Credit Suisse Group as it boosts its share of business managing sales of investment-grade bonds.

Malafronte plans to join the New York-based bank in July, according to three people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the move hasn’t been announced. Sankaranarayan started in May, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority records show.

Goldman Sachs is the fourth-most active underwriter of dollar-denominated, investment-grade bonds in 2013, up from sixth during the same period last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg that excludes sales the bank managed on its own behalf.

Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, declined to 12th in underwriter rankings from 10th as it cuts jobs and reduces costs to comply with new regulations.

Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are among the only top banks in the world that aren’t reducing capacity, even as Zurich-based UBS and Credit Suisse shrink balance sheets and withdraw from certain markets and regions, according to Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn.

Banks worldwide cut more than 80,000 staff positions in 2011 and 2012, with five out of eight of Goldman’s “key global competitors” also making “significant restructuring announcements” in the face of new regulation and higher capital requirements, Cohn said.

“You’re seeing big international banks, outside of ourselves and JPMorgan, really taking a pretty substantial step back from the markets, and we hadn’t seen that in the entire history of banking,” Cohn said.

Borrowers have sold US$585.1 billion of the notes this year, 11 per cent more than during the same period in 2012, when a record US$1.12 trillion of the debt was issued.

US investment-grade bonds have lost 1.4 per cent this year, compared with a 4.6 per cent gain in the period in 2012, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data.

(Bloomberg)