Mass redundancies at Collins Stewart Tullett

Collins Stewart Tullett, the UK broker and fund manager, has made as many as 125 brokers redundant in the wake of its acquisition of rival Prebon.

Sources close to the two firms said that the London-based brokers were shown the door last week along with 30 technology support staff in the first large-scale redundancies to hit the two firms.

The move comes as Collins Stewart sets out to achieve up to 60m a year in pre-tax savings from the merger of its Tullett Liberty broking business with Prebon.

The 125 broking staff are believed to have come from across the two firms, while the 30 support staff were all from Prebon. Sources close to the firm say they expect the next wave of cuts to hit Prebon and Tullett's US operations.

The redundancies had been widely expected, despite earlier promises from Prebon management that there would be "no significant staff reductions" following the acquisition.

The takeover has already claimed the scalps of senior Prebon staff, including Patrick Keenan, executive director and a co-founder, John Helm, chief technology officer, and his number two, Patrick McGraft.

Nick Raddell, who was in charge of fixed income, equities and futures; Andy Berry, who ran Prebon's arbitrage desk; Geoff Sandersson, head of IT; and Tim Dennis, global head of business development; have also left Prebon, according to sources close to the two companies.

Last week, Tullett's Asian operation was hit by the departure of 25 senior staff to rival Icap, while Prebon's Asian unit lost seven staff to Tradition, a French rival. The Cantor Fitzgerald spin-off, BGC Partners, and New York-based broker, GFI, are also said to be seeking to hire staff from both companies, according to sources close to GFI and Cantor.

Prior to the merger Prebon employed 1,650 staff globally, and Tullett Liberty a further 2,000.

A spokesman for Collins Stewart declined to comment.