Lehman Brothers on Tuesday said Roger Nagioff, the London-based global head of fixed income, would retire from the bank after just eight months in the job. Nagioff’s elevation last year was heralded as a major event. It was the first time Lehman had based the sole head of one its operating divisions outside the US. Fixed income remains Lehman’s biggest business despite the investment bank’s expansion in equities and other areas. But the credit crisis forced Nagioff, who has young children, to spend at least two weeks a month in New York, a situation that became untenable. Lehman said Nagioff was retiring to spend more time with his family. People familiar with the matter said his departure did not herald the disclosure of big losses in Lehman’s fixed-income business, and that Dick Fuld, chief executive, and Joe Gregory, president, had worked hard to convince him to stay. Lehman’s Q4 fixed-income capital markets revenue dropped 60% to $860m. But Lehman has employed effective hedging strategies to avoid large mortgage-related writedowns.
