Ralf Burmeister, head of covered bonds and financials research at LBBW, is understood to have lined up a position at a German asset manager, while Barclays Capital has added to its covered bond research team from Standard & Poor’s.

Burmeister, who is on paternity leave, is due to join DWS Investments, the mutual fund arm of Deutsche Asset Management, part of Deutsche Bank. He has been at Landesbank Baden-Württemberg since 2000 and in November 2007 became head of the covered bond and financials research team in the bank’s credit research department.

Jussi Harju joined Barclays Capital in May from Standard & Poor’s, where he was responsible for rating UK, Scandinavian and Dutch covered bond programmes. As European Strategy analyst he and Fritz Engelhard, German head of strategy, are primarily responsible for Barclays’ covered bond research, while Michaela Seimen works on SSA and covered bond research.

Harju’s hire follows the departure of Leef Dierks, who left Barclays’ research team last year to join Morgan Stanley as head of covered bond and SSA strategy.