Dresdner Kleinwort Benson on Wednesday shifted €214m ($201m) of its own shares on behalf of Nomura Securities in less than two hours, in the first significant secondary sale of the year.

The deal was part of Dresdner Bank completing its acquisition of Wasserstein Perella, the US investment bank which Dresdner bought last year for $1.37bn (€1.46bn). Under the structure of the deal, Dresdner issued 30 million new shares to pay for Wasserstein Perella, which left Nomura Securities, one of Wasserstein's shareholders, with five million shares in Dresdner Bank.