R.J. O'Brien Appoints Kevin Hall Managing Director, Sales and Head of New York Office

CHICAGO and NEW YORK, Jan. 27, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- R.J. O'Brien & Associates (RJO), the oldest and largest independent futures brokerage and clearing firm in the United States, announced that Kevin J. Hall has been appointed Managing Director, Sales and Head of the firm's New York office. Hall, 52, has spent more than three decades in financial services, specializing in institutional sales, investment management services and risk management.

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Hall reports to Mark Sachs, RJO Senior Managing Director, Sales and Marketing, who said: "Kevin has outstanding experience and terrific leadership skills that will help us build on a great foundation we've established in our New York office. He brings a wealth of knowledge that will serve us well as we further broaden our services and specialties, including growing our institutional brokerage teams."

Hall said: "As the regulatory landscape continues to steer institutional, professional and corporate market participants to an exchange-driven environment, RJO is ideally positioned to capitalize on its core strengths in exchange-listed, cleared derivative products. I'm excited to lead the efforts in New York to aggressively build out market areas of expertise – including metals and energy – that complement our specialties in the Chicago headquarters.  We've already begun to engage in discussions with experienced brokers that represent a good strategic fit with RJO."

Prior to RJO, Hall spent most of the last 30 years in increasingly senior roles at large financial services firms, beginning his career in 1984 at investment bank Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co. He joined Refco, Inc. in 1986 and was named Vice President, responsible for a financial risk management sales group focusing on corporate and institutional clients with multiple risk exposures in commodities and financials.  While there, in 1999, he established Hadrian Partners, a commodity trading advisor (CTA).  Hall assumed the role of Senior Vice President – Institutional & Managed Futures Services at MF Global in 2005 when that firm took over Refco's business lines. He left in April 2011 to focus exclusively on the CTA.

An active participant in the alternative investment industry, Hall has served as a lecturer or invited speaker on a global basis, with audiences including the International Energy Agency and banking groups in Poland and Colombia.

Hall earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Dayton in Ohio. Committed to public service, he has served for the past three years as Council President of Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.

About R.J. O'Brien

Celebrating its centennial year in 2014, RJO is the largest independent futures brokerage firm in the United States, serving institutional, commercial and individual clients globally, in addition to a network of 400 introducing brokers (IB). Clearing more than 100,000 client accounts, RJO services the industry's most expansive global network of IBs, a vast array of middle market firms and many of the world's largest financial, industrial and agricultural institutions. The firm offers state-of-the-art electronic trading and 24-hour trade execution on every futures exchange worldwide.

SOURCE R.J. O'Brien & Associates