Aug. 30 (LPAC) - In another act signifying the disaster facing the largest British banks, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), the Queen's own bank, has announced the "resignation" of Rick Caplan, who was managing director at RBS Greenwich Capital in Connecticut, where he headed the Collateralized Dept Obligations department. Caplan had previously worked for Citigroup, where he created a "structured financing" mechanism called "Yosemite prepay structures" for Enron, intended to reduce Citigroup's exposure to Enron. Caplan was called to testify before the Congress after the "structured financing" helped bankrupt Enron.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Caplan "left the company amid falling CDO volumes. RBS said he took around a quarter of the team with him."

This follows the resignation just days ago of Edward Cahill, the SIV-Lite genius at Barclay's whose role is being compared to Nick Leeson, the trader whose speculation in Barings Bank's Singapore office single-handedly brought down the entire Bank in 1995.

Since Barclays and RBS are the two primary banks bidding for the takeover of Dutch giant ABN-Amro, there is reason to suspect that the deal will go down with the other take-overs that have fallen apart, now that the reality of the bankrupt banking system is sinking in.