A Goldman Sachs economist in London quit for a fund in Denmark

Is it Brexit? Is it Goldman? Is it the general sense that there's a better life on offer on the buy-side than the sell-side? Who knows, but one of Goldman's fairly senior economists in London has decided to jack it all in for life at a fund in Hillerød, Denmark.

The man in question Kasper Lund-Jensen, a Dane with a PhD in economics from Oxford University and an MSc in finance and economics from the London School of Economics, who'd been in the UK since at least 2009 (a short period at the IMF in Washington excepted).

Now Lund-Jensen is jettisoning rainy London for rainier Hillerød, a town 40km outside Copenhagen which boasts a 17th century castle, but has only seven hours of daylight in the winter months. There, he will work for ATP Group, a fund manager with more than DK748bn ($120bn) of assets under management, as a senior portfolio manager.

Lund-Jensen spent six years at Goldman in London after joining as an associate in 2011. In 2013 he put together a presentation explaining what his Goldman job entailed, which you can see here. 

He's certainly not the first London banker to leave for his home country. Nor is he the first London banker to leave for his home country and get a job on the buy-side. As we noted previously, this is a definite pattern. ATP even employs another ex-Goldman banker from London - Jacob Kolind,  a former associate in Goldman's equity structuring team, joined in 2014.

Are more people leaving than before though? It's hard to tell. Anecdotally, the prospect of Brexit is starting to hit home. In any case, Goldman is likely to pay badly this year after an awful first six months. If you're thinking of going, it's as good a time to get out as any.

Photo credit: Denmark_0432 - Frederiksborg Castle by Dennis Jarvis is licensed under CC BY 2.0.