A co-head of Goldman Sachs' investment management arm, Peter Kraus, is to step down at the end of March. The departure of the 55-year-old was revealed in an internal memo and his departure follows the exit last September of Eric Schwartz, co-head of the asset management business.

Goldman’s asset management division will now be solely headed by Edward Forst, a bond market executive and former chief administrative officer.

Mr Kraus started his Goldman career in mortgage securities and later became an investment banker covering financial institutions in New York and Japan.

Before he was assigned to help build up the investment management division in 2001, Mr Kraus was global co-head of financial institutions, advising on the some of the biggest bank deals of the late 1990s.