Scott Kapnick, the American partner who was replaced as co-chief executive of Goldman Sachs' European business in July, will retire from the bank at the end of the year. Kapnick is one of several of the firm's executives to have left in a changing of the guard in Europe in the past 18 months.

Kapnick has spent the last 12 years as a partner or partner managing director at Goldman, and is one of the bank's few remaining partners who held the position before its 1999 initial public offering.