ABN Amro has poached three banking analysts from UBS as part of a drive to rebuild its European equities team after losing a third of its London-based research department since the beginning of this year.

Ian Smillie and Barrington Pitt-Miller were co-heads of of UK banks, and part of UBS' European banks team which was ranked fourth in this year's Thomson Extel pan-European survey. Ben Lambert was also part of the banks team at UBS.