Deutsche Bank made a major hire from Standard Chartered

When Kevin Burke joined Standard Chartered as global head of financial markets sales in July 2017, it was seen as something of a coup. Less than two years later, he is going back to where he came from.

Burke, who worked for Standard Chartered in Singapore, resigned last week. Insiders say he’s off to Deutsche Bank, where he is understood to be joining as institutional and treasury coverage in APAC. Burke worked for DB for three years before joining Stan Chart, latterly as head of the Germam bank's Asia Pacific institutional debt group. 

Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered declined to comment.

Burke’s alleged exit comes at a difficult time for both banks. Standard Chartered is cutting $700m in costs in an effort to meet targets and Deutsche Bank is entertaining the possibility of a disruptive merger with Commerzbank, the success of which would be predicated on some even more vicious cost cutting.

 If Burke is indeed joining Deutsche, it could be a risky move in light of the German bank’s apparent decision to orient itself away from both Asia and the U.S. under CEO Christian Sewing. Then again, Sewing reportedly told Asian DB staff there were no plans to pull out of the region during a townhall in May 2018.

Burke was one of numerous hires made into Standard Chartered by Roberto Hoornweg, the former Brevan Howard partner who joined as head of the markets business at the start of 2017. Hoornweg also hired over a dozen people into the bank’s credit trading division.

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