Senior RBS investment banker turns up at Millennium Management after two years out

The former head of high yield syndicate at Royal Bank of Scotland, who left the bank in 2015 as part of broader job cuts across its debt capital markets and leveraged finance team, has just re-surfaced in a senior role at Millennium Management in London.

Kevin Connell joined Millennium as co-head of its European Credit Fund earlier this month. He spent 10 years at RBS, latterly as a managing director within its leveraged capital markets division and head of European high yield syndicate.

Before joining RBS in 2006, he was a vice president in leveraged finance at Bear Stearns, and has also worked at Citigroup and J.P. Morgan over the course of 20 years in banking. The new role is Connell’s first role since the tail end of 2015, according to records on the Financial Conduct Authority.

RBS made some big changes to its leveraged finance and high yield origination teams at the tail end of 2015. It reportedly moved the team out of its investment bank, and instead sat it within the commercial and private banking division. Around 100 roles were cut within its DCM and financing teams, according to reports.

As well as Connell, Sarah Mackey, its head of financial sponsors coverage for EMEA, left to joined UBS as co-head of leveraged finance. Damon Mahon, a director within RBS’s financials and ABS syndicate desk, joined Wells Fargo in February last year.

For Millennium, it’s a rare senior hire in a year when senior staff have been departing. Arnaud Langlois, a former partner and trader at Millennium, launched his own hedge fund – Terreneuve Capital – in July. Andrew Dodson, an oil trader and partner at Millennium, also left in July, while Charaf Tahiri, a former director at Citigroup who joined Millennium in 2014, left in August.

One of its most recent hires, however, is Craig Loftus who joined in late September after more than 12 years working in equity syndicate at Goldman Sachs. It also brought in James Watson, the former head of swaps trading ex-euro at Morgan Stanley who moved to Brevan Howard in 2011, as a partner and portfolio manager in May.

Contact for news, tips and comments: pclarke@efinancialcareers.com

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