Trader quits despite £10m bonus

STAR bond trader Alan Howard has quit his employer, Credit Suisse First Boston, despite earning an estimated £10m bonus.

The payout puts the 37-year-old at the top of the City's earnings league alongside Bob Diamond, the head of Barclays Capital, whose bonus was the same amount.

CSFB said Howard's resignation was 'amicable' and he was working three months' notice. He is thought to be heading for hedge fund manager Tudor. Colleague Chris Rokos, 32, also likely to have bagged a multimillion pound bonus, is said to be considering leaving.

Bond dealers have had a bumper year as investors steered clear of jittery stock markets. Howard's team generated around £250m for CSFB, specialist magazine Financial News estimates. City headhunters say that would trigger a team bonus of up to £25m, and £10m for Howard personally.

Howard is already a multimillionaire. He was a trader at Salomon Brothers in the early Nineties, then joined Japanese Tokai Bank in 1995 for a deal worth some £3m, moving to CSFB two years later.