If this senior equities professional can be made redundant, what hope is there for anyone else?

The Financial Times reports today that Tony Shiret has been made redundant from Credit Suisse.

This is a biggish deal. Tony was a top ranked retail analyst who came 2nd in non-food retail analysis in the Thomson Extel Survey and third in Institutional Investor's ranking.

He'd also worked at Credit Suisse since 1997, when it acquired Barclays de Zoete Wedd's UK and European equities business. Aged 55, Tony's reportedly considering his options.

Credit Suisse isn't commenting. However, headhunters say Tony's exit is part of around 25 redundancies announced in its London equities group in April. "They've let people go all across equity research, sales and trading," alleges one. "They're saying it's because they want to make room for upgrades."

With equities revenues not nearly as good as expected, we noted the possibility for cuts last month. UBS and Nomura have already engaged in a little equities headcount rationalisation.

Equities revenues across major banks fell 4% year on year in the first quarter. At Credit Suisse, they were down 10%.

Jason Kennedy of search firm Kennedy Associates predicts there will be more redundancies across the sector: "At the end of the day, the industry is contracting and banks are still running on bull market staffing levels."

RBC and Jefferies are still hiring. But recruiters caution that they're not hiring that much and claim there's a disproportionate amount of interviewing taking place.