Goldman Sachs loses another high-flyer from its London office: Debt trader follows top earners out of investment bank

MICHAEL Sherwood, the 28-year-old Goldman Sachs debt trader widely believed to have been paid a dollars 3m bonus shortly before Christmas, has left the US investment bank to join a small Swiss investment company.

Mr Sherwood, the head of bond syndication at Goldman, is leaving along with a senior bond trader, Shaun Church. They are to manage the fixed-income funds of Union Banque Privee, a private bank that is said to have up to dollars 15bn available for investment.

Goldman hit the headlines when it emerged that more than 100 staff in its London office would become dollar millionaires - with one senior partner rumoured to have received dollars 25m - as a result of the bonus payments made after an exceptionally good year.

Since then, however, a number of Goldman's highly paid stars have left the group. Two of its leading economists - David Morrison and Jeremy Hale - left to join Tiger Fund, the US group headed by Julian Robertson.

Mr Morrison, who ranks among the City of London's top currency economists, was one of the elite group in London to have been made partners of Goldman.

Mr Sherwood was not a partner but was widely expected within Goldman to have been made a partner within the next year.

He was largely responsible for building the firm's strong position in the Euromarkets, where it had been a fairly average player. Last year it headed the list of Euromarket bookrunners in the trade publication International Financing Review.

Mr Sherwood has, for some years, been one of the highest-earning employees of the firm.

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