More London jobs to go at DrKW

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DrKW) is planning a round of redundancies in its London investment banking operation, following the merger of its origination and advisory businesses.

One source close to the bank said up to 100 staff could leave in the next month. DrKW declined to comment.

DrKW decided to merge its capital markets origination and corporate finance businesses in April. The aim is to create a single corporate finance and origination group focussing on client coverage, rather than individual products and sectors. This will create an overlap between investment bankers from capital markets and advisory departments covering the same corporate clients.

One source said: 'DrKW has taken the decision and it is working out who will stay and who will go.'

Stephen Howard, global head of financial institutions, and Hugh Sandeman, global head of telecoms, are among the senior bankers to have left during the reshuffle.

The biggest overlap between capital markets and advisory coverage is in London. Outside the UK, DrKW has been recruiting senior bankers. Last month, it hired Federico Buccellati from Citigroup to run its Italian advisory operation, while in April it hired Alvaro Vazquez from Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria to head its Spanish corporate finance and advisory team.

Steve Berger, who joined from Lehman Brothers last year as chairman of corporate finance and advisory, will chair the merged group. Joe Dryer, head of capital markets origination since DrKW merged its debt and equity teams in 2002, becomes deputy head of the group.

DrKW is expected to unveil the final structure of its merged operation at the end of the month. It will include a 10-person global operating committee yet to be finalised.