Deutsche Bank is hiring a chunk of Goldman Sachs' macro solutions business

Something seems to be going on at Deutsche Bank. In the past month, the German bank is understood to have recruited at least three senior macro solutions professionals from Goldman Sachs. As Goldman loses, it seems Deutsche Bank is gaining.

The latest Goldman defector is Felix Helbig, an executive director in the U.S. bank's London pension and insurance group who dealt with structured rates sales for Germany. Helbig is understood to be joining Deutsche Bank as co-head of the real money group for Austria and Germany.

Neither Goldman nor Deutsche immediately responded to a request to comment.

Helbig is by no means the first person to leave Goldman's rates team this year. As we've reported frequently in recent weeks, Goldman's London rates business appears to have sprung a leak. Simon Kingsbury, head of European interest rate swaps trading, has left. So has Seb Fassam a top sterling market maker, Stanley Sheriff, a top junior macro trader, Sebastien Angles-Dauriac, a senior structurer in the macro division, and Emmanuel Biensan, a London-based rates salesman. 

Helbig is going to Deutsche Bank. So too, is Biensan. So too, it now appears is Angles-Dauriac. The three are thought to be reporting to Panayiotis Stergiou, a Deutsche Bank lifer and head of European rates sales and structuring. However, Deutsche insiders suggest the build is also the work of Sam Wisnia, the former Goldman Sachs partner who heads fixed income and currencies structuring at DB, and who is said to be taking this opportunity to build out the German bank's team.

The moves come after Deutsche Bank paid an average salary of $730k and an average bonus of $1.1m to its senior risk takers for 2017. Deutsche paid guaranteed bonuses to 18 people in its corporate and investment bank last year.

While Deutsche is poaching some of its best staff, Goldman Sachs is trying to add $1bn in FICC revenues under the plan outlined by its now-ex-co-COO Harvey Schwartz last September.  Goldman is hiring at executive director level, although has to fill the vacancies in its macro group. This month it recruited Ram Krishnan for its distressed credit team (from Deutsche) and Jayant Harshvardhan for its credit trading team (from Barclays).

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