Segantii Pre-Trial Reveals Ex-BofA Trader Gave Key Information

A former trader at Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit gave his Segantii Capital Management contact crucial information before a June 2017 block trade, enabling the hedge fund to guess the seller and position ahead of the transaction, according to a Hong Kong court summary.

Tony Psarianos, then a director of equity sales trading at the bank, told Daniel La Rocca, a trader at Segantii at the time, that the full size of the potential block trade involved 195 million shares in fashion retailer Esprit Holdings Ltd., and that the institution selling the shares had not done so previously, according to background information contained in a court judgment Wednesday.