METALS PEOPLE - RBS halts precious metals research, analysts Nick Moore and Niko Kavalis on 'gardening leave'

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Eddie van der Walteddie.vanderwalt@fastmarkets.comBullion Editor+44 (0)20 7264 2489

London 07/09/2012 - Royal Bank of Scotland has halted its precious metals research operations, and has placed the team producing this material on 'gardening leave', a source told FastMarkets.

The team, comprising Nick Moore, head of commodity strategy, and Nikos Kavalis, commodity strategist, has not published any new research since the start of August.

A source inside the bank told FastMarkets that the trading desk was not affected.

"We are talking about precious metals research," company spokeswoman Anita Berthier confirmed. "It is not the trading and sales people at all. We are conducting a review of what we offer clients with respect to precious metals research."

"We are not producing any precious metals research at this time, but we will update if anything changes."

She declined to confirm that Moore and Kavalis are on gardening leave, however.

RBS is majority-owned by the UK government, and the move to halt precious metals research is part of a wider review of operations, according to sources.

(Editing by Martin Hayes)



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