The merger of Salomon Brothers and Smith Barney is creating a quintessential New York firm, with some big decisions to make about its Chicago operations.
But while it’s still uncertain how the combined entity will rationalize its exchange membership seats, floor operations and back offices, at least its executive ranks will have a Chicago connection.
Thomas Maheras, a former Chicago Mercantile Exchange runner who grew up on the Southwest Side, has been tapped to head the vast fixed-income operations of the newly joined firm.
Maheras already had settled on a career in the markets when a cousin’s cousin invited him onto the Merc as a runner and clerk for Shatkin Trading Co. in 1983. Maheras was in his senior year at Notre Dame.
After surviving Salomon’s training program, he landed on the high-yield bond desk. He guided the firm through the junk-market collapse of 1991 and unwound a mortgage-backed securities mess three years later.
In January, he took over Solly’s bond business–Wall Street’s biggest in terms of volume. The job put the baby-faced, 30-something whiz kid in line to run the firm someday.
Maheras declined to comment.
Charitable bouts: Amid cries of “Knock him out, Jack,” a partisan crowd on the Merc trading floor cheered on exchange Chairman Jack Sandner as he posed last week in boxing gloves with Chicago Board of Trade Chairman Patrick Arbor at a photo shoot promoting Mercy Home for Boys and Girls.
The sixth annual “Ringside for Mercy’s Sake” dinner dance to benefit the Catholic-run Chicago orphanage kicks off at 6 p.m. Saturday in the Chicago Marriott grand ballroom. Once again, it will feature amateur boxing matches pitting Merc and Board of Trade members. Arbor and Sandner are not on the card.
Speaking volumes: Volume in new contracts on the Dow Jones industrial average fell a bit last week. The Chicago Board Options Exchange saw the bulk of the action, trading 232,154 Dow contracts, down from 239,293 the previous week.
At the Board of Trade, volume in Dow futures and options on futures dropped to 85,650 contracts last week from 99,134 the week before.
Meantime, the Merc’s “E-mini” futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 traded 52,649 contracts, down from the previous week’s 53,975.
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Plan B: Now that defiant members have shot down a plan to sell 15 new membership seats, CBOE leaders are going back to the drawing board in search of cash.
The Financial Planning committee will mull other options for replenishing the exchange’s kitty, said Chairman William Brodsky.
Even so, the CBOE isn’t so strapped for working capital that it needs immediate action, he said. “It’s definitely not urgent,” Brodsky said. “We’re fine.”
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