People: Moritz Seibert leaves RBS Americas

Structured Products rounds up all the people moves from November

Seibert: leaving RBS for personal reasons

Moritz Seibert, New York-based head of equity derivatives structuring at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in the Americas, has resigned.

Sources say the move, which occurred around two weeks ago, was due to personal reasons. Seibert previously reported to Miles Hunt, New York-based head of global structuring in the Americas, and Robert Hammer, New York-based head of equities and structured retail in the Americas, as well as Shane Edwards, Hong Kong-based global head of equity derivatives structuring and custom indexes.

Seibert has no direct replacement and his former team will now report directly to Hammer, according to sources at the bank.

Before moving to the US, Seibert served as head of exotic equity pricing at RBS in London. In addition to RBS, he has worked in structured equity and hybrid derivatives at HVB Corporates & Markets, HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt and Sal Oppenheim in Germany.

 

Société Générale Corporate and Investment Banking (SG CIB) has named Alberto Brondolo head of global inflation strategy, and Julian Wiseman as head of UK rates strategy. Both will be based in London and report to Vincent Chaigneau, global head of rates strategy.

Brondolo has previously worked as inflation product manager for Barclays Capital in New York, and as global inflation product manager and structurer at Lehman Brothers in New York.

Prior to joining SG CIB, Wiseman was a senior fixed-income strategist at New York-based emerging market hedge fund The Rohatyn Group, where he focused on currency and fixed-income trade structuring. Wiseman has also worked at the Bank of England, and has held senior rates roles at Credit Suisse First Boston and JP Morgan.

 

Yassine Bouhara and Francois Gouws, co-heads of UBS Investment Bank's global equities division, have left the bank after taking responsibility for the rogue-trading loss that cost the bank $2.3 billion in September. One of the division's two chief operating officers, Niraj Gudka, has also resigned.

The bank has also promised disciplinary action against several other unnamed employees in the equities business who were involved in the incident, and against "responsible staff in other functions". Seven front-office staff have already been suspended pending disciplinary action - including the other co-chief operating officer of the division, Sethu Palaniappan.

Bouhara and Gouws will be succeeded by Mike Stewart, who was hired by the bank in July, as sole head of global equities. UBS had originally intended Stewart to head its Americas securities operation and co-head the global equities division with Gouws, with Bouhara shifted to become chief executive for emerging markets for UBS Investment Bank. Both men were comparatively new to the role, Bouhara having been promoted in September 2010 and Gouws in May 2010.

 

Metro Bank has hired Kirsty MacArthur to set up a private banking team in London. MacArthur joins from Heartwood Wealth Management, where she was divisional director. She reports to Metro Bank chief executive Craig Donaldson.

 

Jamie Smith has been elected chairman of the UK Structured Products Association. Also head of distribution at Lloyds Banking Group, Smith will fulfil the role of chairman until the end of 2012. Smith replaces James Harrington.

 

Société Générale Private Banking has named Paul Vaillancourt chief executive of Canadian Wealth Management. Vaillancourt will retain his chief investment officer functions, a role he has occupied since 2010.

Prior to joining Canadian Wealth Management, he was senior vice-president and director of portfolio strategy at Franklin Templeton Investments.

 

Mary Haly has joined Coutts as senior investment director in the investment services team headed by Gayle Schumacher. Haly joins from Kleinwort Benson Private Bank, where she was co-head of the London portfolio management team.