West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – Hedge fund tech. and brokerage provider, Merlin Securities, formed a new equity sales coverage and content division, the Merlin Institutional Group.

Headed by Jesse Cole and Bryan Miller in New York, the group will focus on delivering traditional institutional equity sales coverage and content to medium and large hedge funds. The group will provide clients with services such as corporate access, company modeling and trading ideas.

“Merlin Institutional Group represents an important development for Merlin,” said Stephan Vermut, founder and managing partner of Merlin. “We have built our reputation on providing excellence in prime brokerage, reporting, trading, and operational support for our clients. With the addition of this new team, we will now be in a position to provide clients with investment ideas, research and modeling. Jesse and Bryan ….are recognized in the industry for their expertise, and we are delighted to welcome them to Merlin.”

Jesse W. Cole joins Merlin from Schonfeld IBS, where he was a member of the institutional sales and trading group since its inception in 2004. Bryan Miller was most recently with the institutional research sales and trading group at Collins Stewart.

Merlin Secutities was recognized as the #1 prime broker for funds less than $1 billion by Alpha magazine’s 2008 hedge fund service provider survey for the second year running.

Alex Akesson