Another former bank prop trader has left Brevan Howard

Traders are disappearing from hedge fund Brevan Howard with increasing regularity. The latest to leave is James Watson, a former Morgan Stanley managing director who joined the hedge fund five years ago.

Watson, who was a partner and portfolio manager at Brevan, left earlier this month according to filings on the Financial Conduct Authority register. He joined the hedge fund from Morgan Stanley, where he was a managing director and head of swaps trading ex-euro, in 2011.

Watson was the last man standing of a number of investment banking prop traders to join Brevan Howard as banks shuttered their proprietary trading businesses. James Fauset, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs who was an FX portfolio manager at Brevan Howard, left in January and is starting his own FX brokerage.

Others who joined in 2011 include Jason Feasey, the head of structured credit prop trading for EMEA at BAML, who left for Bluecrest in 2013, as did Jenna Collins, an asset-backed securities prop trader at the bank. Meanwhile, Richard Armes, co-head of European rates at Morgan Stanley, also left in 2014 and is now a partner at hedge fund trader coaching firm Axis Minds.

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