Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which makes the most from equity trading of all Wall Street banks, is losing the head of a unit that invests in securities exchanges and two senior executives from its London equities division.
Phillip Hylander, who leads the Principal Strategic Investment Group, will step down at the end of the year, according to a Dec. 8 memorandum sent to employees.
He will become an advisory director to the company on retirement, according to the document.
Matthew H. Cyzer, head of sales trading in Europe, and John A. Ashdown, head of trading in the region, are retiring, said a person with knowledge of the matter who declined to be identified because the departures had not been publicly announced.
Cyzer and Hylander joined Goldman Sachs from Deutsche Bank AG in 2002. While Hylander joined as a partner, the company's highest rank, Cyzer and Ashdown were promoted to that position in 2004.
"These guys have been doing it for a while, they've had enough time to raise and grow people beneath them," said Jason Kennedy, the chief executive of Kennedy Group, a London executive search firm.
"Those who have made enough to retire like Hylander and Ashdown are seeing a good reason to step down," Kennedy said.
Goldman Sachs' revenue from equities sales and trading dropped 32%, to $5.43 billion in the first nine months of this year, in part because the company lost money in the second quarter on a bet that stock market volatility would drop.
This year Goldman Sachs also shut down a proprietary trading division within equities, called principal strategies, in response to U.S. legislation that prohibits banks from making such bets with their own money.
Ashdown and Hylander were not immediately available to comment.
Cyzer declined to comment.
Sophie Bullock, a spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs in London, declined to comment.
