Three senior collateralized debt obligation staff have separately exited The Royal Bank of Scotland in London. Synthetic structurer James Gorman and structured credit salesmen Martin Ratsmussen and Benjamin Sturges resigned in the past two weeks. Market buzz has Ratsmussen jumping to BNP Paribas and Sturges to Goldman Sachs, but neither returned cell phone messages and this could not be determined by press time. Gorman could not be reached.
The departures follow that of Scott Eaton, managing director and head of principal finance, who was nabbed by ABN AMRO (DW, 5/30).
In addition, Robert Burns, who left his post as head of CDO distribution to Europe in the spring (DW, 5/10), has surfaced at Lehman Brothers where he is an executive director in the institutional client group covering structured credit and CDOs. He reports to Farshid Sadr-Hashemi, head of the European fixed income institutional group. Burns declined comment.
Murray Parker, spokeman at RBS, said the firm is looking to fill all the above roles. Spokespeople at BNP and Goldman declined immediate comment.
