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If RBS thought it could hire in a few people on large packages without causing a media furore, it was wrong. Fresh from the weekend fuss over unseemly bonuses, it’s now embroiled in a further fracas regarding packages paid to Merrill bankers who’ve apparently moved over to join the £7m man Antonio Polverino.

The Telegraph reports that RBS has lifted 11 fixed income from Merrill on one year guarantees of £500k. We understand they’re actually fixed income sales people. They’re thought to include the likes of Francesco Rizzo, Samir Atassi, and Stefano Marzeglia. The packages are unconfirmed.

Some of the alleged hires worked with Antonio at BofA Merrill before he left earlier this year. As head of equity derivatives sales at Merrill, Atassi, for example, shared responsibility with Polverino for some FX sales clients.

Some go back even further with Antonio: Rizzo was one of 23 people at JP Morgan who followed Polverino across to Merrill in 2005.

It’s worth bearing in mind that Polverino’s arrival at Merrill precipitated a restructuring of the fixed income sales function at the US bank, which resulted in various Merrill staff exiting voluntarily over the following 18 months.

Headhunters say the same thing could yet happen at RBS.

“People at RBS are asking three things,” says one. “The first is how Stephen Hester and Brian Reid could have allowed the payment of these big guarantees. The second is why they needed to hire all these people anyway – it was the structured credit business that blew up RBS, the bank already had talent in fixed income sales. And the third is what will happen to the bonus pool after all these guarantees have been paid.”

However, another headhunter says the size of the guarantees is exaggerated, that the bulk of them aren’t being cash, and that they’re spread over several years. Others point out that RBS needed to hire to replace people it lost earlier this year, and that uncertainty at Merrill is encouraging the exits.

RBS declined to comment.