Katie Hostalier, structured finance analyst at Commerzbank Securities in London, has taken on a new role as a desk analyst working with the firm's sales and trading staffers and ceased publishing written research.
Alex MacKay, head of asset-backed research, said Commerzbank's ABS research team is maintaining its existing capacity but is not actively looking to fill Hostalier's publishing spot for now.
New European regulations meant to promote research integrity require banks to physically separate publishing researchers and traders, though desk analysts can offer research-like services to investors and benefit from working with traders as long as the analysts don't publish traditional research. It is unclear if these regulations prompted Hostalier's switch.