Butterfield's real estate deparment to Jones Waddington Ltd., The Royal Gazette has learned.

The news comes just weeks after the bank said it expected to be able to find jobs for most of the employees in other departments.

When the bank announced on June 18 that it had sold its real estate unit, senior vice president Ken Morgan estimated five employees in the bank's real estate department would be affected and one or two employees could be made redundant.

Mr. Morgan could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Now one employee, a Canadian, has gone back to Canada, one recently found new employment, one has gone to work for another real estate company, two are assisting with the business transition while a sixth employee, also made redundant, is believed to be only a few years from retirement, a source close to the real estate department told the The Royal Gazette .

Jones Waddington president Arthur Jones said none of the Bank of Butterfield employees had joined his firm.

An effort was made to employ some of them but it did not work out, he said yesterday.

The bank real estate department, set up about ten years ago, grew out of the bank's trust and executor client real estate requirements which will now be contracted out.

Last month, bank CEO Michael Collier said: "Although our real estate department was a viable business, we have decided not to be involved in this line of business any longer, given that real estate is not a core banking area for us going forward.'' Details of the sale, effective June 28, were not disclosed.

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