The big bank which quietly lost 80% of its staff

If the threat of job loss is a measure of trauma (which it seemingly is) then the bankers who once worked for Dresdner Kleinwort in the City of London are among some of the most traumatized around. After being shunted over to Commerzbank in mid-2009, their numbers have progressively dwindled. Very few ex-Dresdner bankers are still working for Commerz.

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority register shows that at the time it was acquired by Commerzbank in May 2009, Dresdner Kleinwort employed 312 approved persons in London. Today, the register shows that Commerzbank employs just 59 approved persons who previously worked at Dresdner Kleinwort - an attrition rate of 80%. Approved persons typically work in the front and back office of banks.

What happened to all those ex-Dresdner bankers? 152 (49%) are currently out of the market - or at least are not registered in London. The others are dispersed in  pockets between the likes of Barclays, Nomura, Macquarie, SocGen and HSBC. Some have fared badly at their new firms - in mid-2009, over 30 Dresdner equities professionals went to Evolution, which was later acquired by Investec. Investec then made some redundancies of its own. Today, the FCA Register suggests that only five ex-Dresdner bankers are working for the South African bank.

Today, Commerzbank is reportedly preparing to make another 5,000 redundancies group-wide, suggesting the surviving Dresdner bankers could be in for more trauma still. Commerzbank was unable to immediately return a request for comment, but the good news is that none of these redundancies will apparently hit London - for now.