Andrew Pisker, former chief executive of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, has teamed up with ex-colleagues Tarek Mahmoud, Steve Berger and Werner Grub to set up a joint investment vehicle.

The venture marks Pisker's first public move back into the financial markets. He left DrKW last November after the investment bank was folded into Dresdner's corporate banking division. Mahmoud was global head of sales and marketing and co-head of capital markets at the German-owned bank, while Berger headed the corporate finance business and Grub was a managing director in risk management. Their investment vehicle, Richmond Park Capital, was established in June. Berger denied the former DrKW team had set up a hedge fund. He said: "It's a personal investment vehicle which we use to make equity acquisitions. We're not raising funds externally but other friends could sign up in the future." Berger said he was studying an investment in Europe. A former head of international investment banking at Lehman Brothers, Berger was hired as Pisker's number two in 2003. He had been instrumental in spinning Lehman off from American Express and many expected him to perform a similar role in separating DrKW from its owner Allianz. He left the bank in March last year after falling out with Paul Achleitner, chief financial officer at Allianz. Mahmoud resigned in January. Joe Dryer, co-head of advisory at DrKW, last month became one of the last of Pisker's senior lieutenants to leave. DrKW insiders were not surprised by his departure. A banker said it was inevitable. "Stefan Jentzsch, the chief executive, has surrounded himself with former colleagues in Bert Piedra and Jens Peter Neumann, so you have a new core of ex-Goldman bankers with their own plans for the bank," he said.