Kevin Connors, Goldman Sachs’ global co-head of global G10 foreign exchange sales, is understood to have left the firm abruptly last week. People with direct knowledge of the situation said that his departure was due to an internal policy breach, and not due to unsubstantiated allegations of insider trading, as some market sources had suggested.
Internal policy rules typically set guidelines on such things as disclosures of personal account trading and the operation of Chinese walls. Goldman Sachs declined to comment. Connors was made a partner of the firm in October 2008.
According to some people that have worked with Connors, he is known as an aggressive salesman and has specialized in servicing hedge fund clients in the past.
Before joining Goldman, Connors was head of metals trading with UBS. According to Bloomberg, in 1999 the investment-banking arm of UBS, Warburg Dillon Read, threatened disciplinary action against him after he had reserved the Internet names chasewarburg.com and citiwarburg.com with Geneva-based Register.com. As this story went live, UBS had not responded to enquiries about whether this action was resolved.
Warburg had been the subject of speculation about a possible merger with Chase Manhattan Corp or Citigroup’s investment banking division, Salomon Smith Barney Inc. in the weeks surrounding the date of the registrations. UBS said at the time that the registrations were "unauthorized'' and had "no approval from management.'' It is believed that Conners left UBS in 2000. Calls to Connors’ mobile went unanswered.