Man leaves SocGen for promotion before redundancies hit

French bank Societe Generale is reportedly planning to make some big cost cuts. Bloomberg reported last week that the bank had a "challenging" fourth quarter and is preparing to 'substantially cut costs' in the corporate and investment bank (CIB). Substantially cutting costs usually means redundancies, which at SocGen usually mean incredibly generous payments to get people to go quietly, but one trader at least hasn't hung around to see what's on the table.

Rob Gash, a former SocGen fixed income rates salesman in London, has hurried over to rival French bank Credit Agricole CIB. There, Gash will be head of hedge fund rates sales for the UK according to his LinkedIn profile. That looks a lot like a promotion.

Gash spent over seven years at SocGen after joining from JPMorgan in Hong Kong.

It's not clear who exactly will be most affected by SocGen's cuts, which SocGen isn't commenting on. Bloomberg suggested will be announced in February along with 'steep cuts' to traders' bonuses. In the third quarter of 2018 SocGen's fixed income revenues were largely flat compared to the same period one year earlier and the French bank said the rates business was strong while the credit business performed poorly. Credit Agricole doesn't break out its fixed income trading revenues in particular, but in the third quarter its combined fixed income trading and investment banking division revenues were down 16%.

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