Two former Lehman Brothers Australia (LBA) employees have set up shop with Laminar Advisory.

Simon Dawkins and Cameron Rae have joined the group and will focus on providing brokerage services.

Laminar operates in three distinct areas: brokerage, advisory services and asset management.

Former Challenger portfolio manager Chris Black leads the asset management group, while former Aviva Investors senior manager of credit Robert Camilleri heads the advice business.

"We will be operating as three different businesses, independent of each other," Camilleri said.

The businesses, however, will work together on certain transactions.

He said the firm was hoping to tap into the local government sector, providing investment advice specialising in fixed income assets to the councils.

The firm will be securing the services of Dawkins and Rae to help in debt origination for local government councils, he said.

"These groups operate on the fringe of capital markets, however, these councils still need advice, and akin to that the best advise backed up true portfolio management experience," he said.

Some local councils have taken a $1 billion hit on investments in structured products on the back of the deepening global market crisis. A number of councils are currently involved in litigation against companies, including Lehman Brothers, that sold them the products.

Camilleri said he acknowledged some local councils had been burnt by their investments in structured products, such as collatoralised debt obligations (CDO).

"Although some local councils have been burnt by structured fixed income products like CDOs, many of these councils did not have a diversified portfolio. This meant that when CDOs fell, their portfolios took a big hit," he said.

He said he welcomed new guidelines that ensured local councils must comply with investment standards that included the risk objective and capital preservation.