Kingsmill Bond, chief strategist at Sberbank CIB, has quit the Russian investment bank to take up a role as a new energy analyst at Trusted Sources consultancy in London.

Cambridge-educated Bond rejoined the Moscow-based group in 2013 after two years as chief strategist for Citigroup in Moscow. He had previously spent four years as chief strategist and managing director at Troika Dialog, which was rebranded Sberbank CIB in 2012 following its $1bn takeover by Russia's largest bank.

He also worked for a decade at Deutsche Bank in a number of research and strategy roles, including head of Global Emerging Markets, and Europe, Middle East and Africa strategy between 2004 and 2007.

"Kingsmill has made this decision because he wants to focus on alternative energy research projects," Sberbank CIB said in an e-mailed statement to bne IntelliNews. "We thank Kingsmill for his professionalism and many years of work at the company and wish him the best of luck in his future plans."

Andrey Kuznetsov, who rejoined the bank alongside Bond from Citigroup, will take up the position of chief strategist.

Bond will be reunited at Trusted Sources with Christopher Granville, a former Moscow analyst who set up the consultancy in 2006. Granville, who is also a former diplomat, spent six years as chief strategist and political analyst at UFG, a Moscow-based investment bank which was acquired by Deutsche Bank.

Bond didn't reply to an e-mail seeking comment. 

Trusted Sources covers 10 of the biggest emerging markets and has analysts on the ground in Bejing, Delhi, Sao Paulo, Moscow, London and New York, according to its website.

Equity strategists are becoming an endangered species in Moscow after slumping commodity prices and sanctions linked to the Ukraine conflict propelled the world's largest energy exporter into its first recession since 2009.

Peter Westin, a former chief strategist and economist at  both Aton Capital and JP Morgan in Moscow, has been hired as a lecturer at the DePaul University in Chicago a year after leaving Russia.

"I have been hired as an adjunct lecturer at DePaul University where I am teaching courses for both the economics and the finance department," Westin said. "I am also doing some consultancy for a few hedge funds mainly in relation to emerging markets and Russia."

Deutsche Bank dismissed its entire Moscow research team and about 100 personnel after closing its investment bank in Russia last year following a trading scandal. Royal Bank of Scotland announced in November it had sold its local unit.

US investment banks in Moscow, including JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, have also moved many of their key analysts to London to cover markets as investors deserted Russian equities following the imposition of sanctions.