There's been a major equities exit from Deutsche Bank after last week's bonuses

Brad Kurtzman is leaving Deutsche Bank. Kurtzman was Deutsche's co-head of equities in the Americas and the global co-head of equity trading globally. 

In a memo sent last week, Deutsche Bank head of equities Peter Selman said Kurtzman will be leaving Deutsche at the end of this month after nearly seven years with the bank.

It's not clear where Kurtzman will be going next, but insiders suggested he's off to a hedge fund. Deutsche Bank did not respond to a request to comment.

Kurtzman's exit follows reports that Deutsche Bank's equities sales and trading business made a $750m loss last year. It also follows major cuts to the U.S. equities sales and trading business in 2018. 

In his memo, Selman said Kurtzman was, "instrumental in last year's strategic review, consequent balance sheet reduction and increased investment in equities execution." Selman also said that Kurtzman had played an, "integral part of our equities executive leadership team," and that he, "played a key role in developing a single risk management platform across the global franchise."

Ashley Wilson remains as the sole global head of equities trading at DB.

Kurtzman's exit follows last week's announcement of bonuses at Deutsche Bank, when many equities professionals complained of bonus cuts of up to 40%. It also follows the exits of Craig Bench (co-head of U.S. equity sales) and Yao-Chung King ('Yao King'), Deutsche's longstanding head of U.S. program trading, for unnamed hedge funds. Bench is thought to be joining traders from Surveyor Capital who are starting their own firm. 

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