HSBC laid off almost 30 professionals from its fixed income sales and trading groups last week, as the subprime MBS and CDO meltdown results into rounds of Wall Street personnel shakeouts. The cuts affected all levels of fixed-income professionals, from senior managing directors to traders, said a market source familiar with the situation. Market sources named several specific executives who left the firm in the shakeout, but ASR is withholding their names pending confirmation from the bank.
Earlier this year, HSBC said it might lose about $1.8 billion stemming from its holdings of poorly performing subprime ARMs and second-lien loans originated in 2006. Since then, several key structured finance and fixed income executives have left the firm. Among them was Jon Voigtman, a managing director in the MBS products group, who left the bank in early April. Voigtman was recruited by RBC Capital Markets as head of its U.S. residential MBS business, an RBC Capital markets spokeswoman confirmed.
