Merrill Lynch, the US investment bank, has poached another member of Goldman Sachs's derivatives team to add to the five European derivatives hires that it made last week.

Alex Langnau, a senior quantitative analyst and specialist in exotic equity structures, joins a group of former Goldman colleagues that includes Roberto Centeno, Andrea Anselmetti, Luca Pietrangeli, Ernesto Mercadente and Scott Giardina. They are based in London.