How bonus structures contributed to the credit crisis

When structurers are rewarded for knocking out risky deals, but paid nothing for correctly pulling back from the market, is it any surprise this summer's events took place? Matthew Attwood reports

As the credit market continues to take tentative steps back to stability, high-profile casualties of the summer's events are still rising to the surface, most recently at Merrill Lynch, which has seen the departure of Osman Semerci, head of fixed-income trading, and Dale Lattanzio, head of structured credit products.

The earlier resignation of Ed Cahill, Barclays Capital's head of European collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) and pioneer of the SIV-lite structure, demonstrated investment banks'