Ex-Lehman FX sales team reunited at SocGen

LONDON - Mike Burton, global head of flow foreign exchange sales at Société Générale in London, has grabbed three former Lehman Brothers colleagues from Nomura to boost his institutional sales team, according to market sources.

Ed Popham-Holloway, Joss Anstey and Chris Jackson all left Nomura in London at the end of July and will link up with Burton at Société Générale later this year after completing their gardening leave, sources have told FX Week. The trio all know each other from their Lehman Brothers days, when they worked as part of Burton's foreign exchange sales team at the US bank in London.

Burton joined Société Générale in November last year, while Popham-Holloway, Anstey and Jackson headed to Nomura along with the bulk of Lehman's European fixed-income division (FX Week, December 1 and October 13, 2008).

Burton is also believed to have added former Bank of America salesperson, Bernhard Bieri, to his sales outfit in London. At BoA, Bieri specialised in FX sales to Swiss, Austrian and German clients and is understood to be taking on a similar role at SocGen when he starts in September. Bieri lost his post at BoA in May as part of cuts made by the bank following the January 1 takeover of Merrill Lynch (FX Week, May 11).

Separately, in New York, Nomura is rumoured to have hired Jon Comings from Deutsche Bank to work in emerging market sales.

SocGen, Nomura and Deutsche Bank all declined to comment.