MERRILL LYNCH unveiled the biggest shake-up in its investment banking arm for three years yesterday, only a week after admitting that the division’s sales and trading revenues had fallen from the previous quarter.

The Wall Street bank announced new heads for its global fixed-income and equities operations and said that three executives in sales and trading would leave to “pursue other interests”.

Osman Semerci, 38, a former tour bus guide, and Rohit D’Souza, 42, will run fixed income and equities worldwide, businesses that generated 44 per cent of Merrill’s $8.2 billion (£4.4 billion) second-quarter revenues.

Jeff Kronthal, head of principal investments, Harry Lengsfield, head of interest-rate products and foreign exchange, and Doug DeMartin, head of equity and debt sales, had left the bank with immediate effect, Merrill said in an internal memo yesterday.

The bank’s move to streamline its sales and trading business cuts out layers of management, with only Mr Semerci and Mr D’Souza now reporting directly to Dow Kim, co-head of investment banking and global markets.

The new structure, dubbed FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities), mimics the trading units set up at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs and even shares its name with Goldman’s trading unit.

Mr Semerci will run global equities from London and Mr D’Souza will head FICC from New York.

Mr D’Souza is credited with creating the Strategic Risk Trading group at Merrill, a team of proprietary traders who make stock market bets with the bank’s own capital. He joined Merrill from Morgan Stanley in 2004.

Mr Semerci joined Merrill in 1994 after honing his skills in equities and commodities trading. Merrill did not return calls seeking comment.

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