The SAC Capital employees who left a sinking ship just in time

SAC Capital Advisors’ London office is no more. The UK unit has been deemed surplus to requirements as the firm scales back in the wake of being charged with insider trading by U.S. prosecutors and is set to close.

The London office is one of the biggest outside of the U.S. and has been building up since being downsized to just four traders when the 2008 financial crisis hit. It now has 41 people working in regulated functions, according to the Financial Conduct Authority register, a figure that hasn’t dramatically fluctuated throughout 2013. Despite chief executive Steve Cohen’s attempts to reassure staff in August, however, it seems that some employees have had the foresight to leave before being forced out.

• Lia Forcina, a trader who ran $700m worth of funds from SAC’s London office, has quit for BlueCrest Capital Management, according to Bloomberg.

• Alidod Shirinbekov, a portfolio manager at SAC for the last three years, joined BlueCrest in October.

• Johan Levavasseur, a portfolio manager in the long/short equity team with a focus on materials and industrials, joined Millennium Capital as a portfolio manager in October.

• Thomas Corns, joined Graham Capital as a director in September.

• Andres Anker, a portfolio manager, joined Millennium Capital in June.

• Lorenz Wegener, a research analyst, joined Volant Trading as a senior developer in September.

• Fabian Garavito, an economist at SAC, signed up to London School of Economics as a finance PhD student and teaching assistant in the financial services department in June.

Now that SAC’s London staff are set to flood an already tight job market, these moves seem very wise indeed.