Lost your job in fixed income? Look who may hire you

Last year, RBC Capital Markets rode valiantly to the rescue of several discarded fixed income professionals. Could this year's steely saviour be....Mizuho International?

We're just asking because Mizuho International has been very quietly scooping up fixed income sales, trading and strategy types. Since the start of this year it's hired two: Simon Banfield, a senior credit salesman, and Peter Chatwell, an interest rate strategist. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) register indicates that Banfield last worked in London for BNP Paribas, back in 2012 (although someone of his name and profile has been at Swedbank in Stockholm since). Chatwell, meanwhile, was working for Credit Agricole until he left in late November.

Two hires may not make much of a dent to the hundreds of fixed income professionals coming out of Barclays and elsewhere, but Mizuho registered a couple more with the FCA in December. They were: Paolo Attianese, who'd spent three months as a junior fixed income sales trader at fixed income boutique Bohler & Associates, and Filippos Petrakopoulos, a fixed income sales analyst who'd spent six months with J.P. Morgan.

Will Mizuho give a lift to other fixed income types in 2015? The bank didn't return a request for comment. Last year, the bank moved Yasuhiro Shibata, its Tokyo-based head of fixed income, to London and said it was planning to push into European fixed income sales and trading.  Mizuho subsequently hired a head of solutions sales from Barclays Capital in London. Any hopes of a wave of hiring may be misplaced, however. Japanese banks are notoriously cautious and Mizuho has been hiring in dribs and drabs in London for many years.