Chris Allington has resigned from his role as co-head of G10 currency trading at the combined Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. Allington, who was confirmed in the role alongside Chris Vogel in early January, is well respected in the industry; he has also been described as David Gu’s right-hand man. Gu, who is the bank’s global head of rates, has recently been under some pressure as a result of the large bonus he received for 2008, as well as the discovery of an unexpected and large loss discovered in the books of one of his interest rate traders.
Bank of America’s decision to appoint co-heads for the combined business always looked a huge compromise and was never likely to bring about any long-term stability to an institution where such a large ‘us and them’ culture had been created. At the time of writing, the reasons for Allington’s resignation were not known, but he is believed to be moving to another bank.