Equities prop desk axed at DrKW

More colour is emerging on the precise hue of job cuts at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.

The Financial Times today reports that the bank is closing its equities proprietary trading desk and shedding up to 100 other staff in London.

The closure of the equity prop desk follows a review of the business by Jens-Pieter Neumann, who joined as head of capital markets in March 2006.

Recruiters predicted its demise as early as February, when it emerged that bonuses in the bank's equities division had been deferred. "Dresdner just don't have the appetite for risk that some of the competition have," one recruiter tells eFinancialCareers. "It was a big loss from the prop trading desk that caused bonuses to be deferred in the first place."

Recruiters say further redundancies in DrKW's equities division are unlikely, and that most of its axed prop traders should walk into jobs elsewhere. "There's quite strong demand for prop traders both from banks and the hedge fund community," says Mark Horlock, a consultant at search firm Alexander Mann Global Markets.

DrKW declined to comment.