John Rothrock named head of DirectPool

Dan Barnes
2274
John Rothrock III, CastleOak Securities.

CastleOak Securities, the New York-based boutique investment bank, has hired John Rothrock III as managing director and head of DirectPool, its Fixed Income Electronic Trading Group. Rothrock joins after more than 20 years of financial services experience, most recently in Bloomberg’s Fixed Income Electronic Trading Solutions group, covering West Coast clients. Rothrock also has prior electronic trading experience at Tradeweb and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

CastleOak’s electronic bond trading solution, DirectPool, which just saw its five-year anniversary, has reached a reported US$35 billion traded in investment grade and high yield credit.

“John is exactly the technology and business leader we need to take DirectPool to the next level. He brings a unique blend of financial acumen, technology know-how, and industry contacts to us, allowing us to focus on deepening our market share and client coverage.” said David Jones, president and CEO of CastleOak Securities.

“For the past seven years, I have been helping build credit liquidity at Bloomberg, so I am excited to join the CastleOak team to follow through on these efforts.” remarked Rothrock. “I am eager to help grow the diverse credit participant community at DirectPool and believe CastleOak’s strong foundational broker-dealer platform will be a great springboard to help tell the DirectPool story.”

Since inception in 2016, DirectPool has become a liquidity pool for over 300 investment managers and bond dealers. The firm’s clients use it to find liquidity in secondary markets – buying and selling fixed income instruments at a low transaction cost. Leveraging its ability in trading investment grade corporates, DirectPool expanded two years later to include high yield credit as well.

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