Isabelle Ealet, 48, the bank’s London-based global head of commodities since 2007, will become one of three co-heads of the securities division alongside Pablo J. Salame, 45, and Harvey M. Schwartz, 47, according to one of three internal memos obtained by Bloomberg News. Michael DuVally, a spokesman for the New York-based company, confirmed the memos’ contents.

Goldman Sachs’s securities division handles sales and trading of equities, fixed-income, currencies and commodities. Heller, 44, Eisler, 42, Salame and Schwartz have overseen the business since 2008. Trading revenue, which was more than 60 percent of the firm’s total in the first nine months of 2011, dropped 22 percent from the same period a year earlier.

“Both of these executives have a risk-taking background at Goldman and are relatively young and may have perceived greener pastures elsewhere,” Gregory Cresci, an executive recruiter at Odyssey Search Partners in New York., said in a phone interview.

Heller, a U.S. citizen based in New York, is leaving after more than 22 years at the company, according to a memo from Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein, 57, and Chief Operating Officer Gary D. Cohn, 51. He started his Goldman Sachs career in equity derivatives and worked in the equities-trading business until becoming co-head of securities in 2008.

Derivatives Trader

Eisler, an Austrian who works in London, joined the firm as an interest-rate derivatives trader in 1994 and ran Global Macro Trading, which includes interest-rate products, foreign exchange and commodities, prior to his most recent role, according to a separate memo. He also has been co-head of global emerging markets as well as of European equities and fixed income.

Both Eisler and Heller will become senior directors, who advise the firm on matters related to their areas of expertise and aren’t employees.

“This is very, very big news as far as Goldman is concerned -- to have two of your four co-heads leave in one fell swoop is highly unusual,” William Cohan, author of “Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World” and a Bloomberg View columnist, said on Bloomberg television. “There obviously was some conflict that forced this.”

French Citizen

Ealet, a French citizen who started at Goldman Sachs as an oil trader in 1991, already is a member of the management committee and will continue to be based in London. She started her Goldman Sachs career at the commodities trading division J. Aron, as did Blankfein and Cohn.

Eric S. Lane, Stephen M. Scherr and Ashok Varadhan have been named to the firm’s management committee, according to a separate memo from Blankfein and Cohn today. Lane was promoted last month to be co-head of the firm’s investment-management division with Timothy O’Neill. Scherr is global head of the financing group within investment banking and also is head of Latin America. Varadhan is global head of currencies and emerging markets.

To contact the reporters on this story: Christine Harper in New York at charper@bloomberg.net; Stephanie Ruhle in New York at sruhle2@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-11/goldman-s-heller-eisler-to-retire-as-co-heads-of-global-securities-unit.html

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