Dutch bank ABN Amro is undertaking a substantial recruitment program as part of its efforts to boost the bank’s
high-grade credit and asset securitization capabilities for its US clients.
Wilco Jiskoot, ABN Amro managing board member, says: “We enjoy leading positions
in the euro market for these two products, and this targeted investment will enable
us to build a complementary presence in the US.”
The bank has already recruited more than 20 new staff in the US, and has plans
to recruit more.
Among the recent hires are Peter O’Malley, who joins from Credit Suisse First
Boston as head of debt capital markets, and John McCarthy who becomes head of
US and Latin American credit markets. McCarthy’s responsibilities cover all
investment-grade and sub-investment-grade financing for the bank in North America.
Caroline Morrill, who joins ABN Amro from Morgan Stanley, becomes head of ABS
syndicate for the US, and will report to Jim Moore, the firm’s head of US
asset-backed securitization and commercial mortgage-backed securities activity.
Also joining ABN Amro’s asset securitization group are William Haley and
Cyrus Mohebbi. Haley, previously of JPMorganChase and Prudential Securities, will
run the ABS origination business under Jim Moore, while Mohebbi will head the
ABS structuring and analytics business.
US investment bank Bear Stearns has rearranged its New York and London credit
and credit derivatives trading staff in response to investors now regarding bonds
and default swaps as closer-related instruments.
According to Mark Davies, global head of credit derivatives trading at Bear Stearns:
“The changes we have made reflect the way our customers look at single-name
risk across both cash and derivatives, and structured risk across all regions.”
However the bank is not merging the cash and derivatives flow trading teams.
In New York, James Kenny has changed roles from head of cash bond trading to be
head of credit derivatives flow trading. He reports to Mark Davies.
Bill Fenwick, who was formerly a senior trader, will take up Kenny’s role
as head of trading for corporate bonds, reporting to Kelley Millet, global head
of high grade.
Also, Martin St. Pierre former co-head of the New York credit derivatives team,
has moved to the London office to oversee structured credit derivative trading
on a global basis.
“Our aim is to continue to grow the global credit derivatives business at
Bear by leveraging off the strength of the New York operation,” says St.
Pierre. “My transfer to London was a strategic decision to take advantage
of the opportunities on offer in the structured business and to set London up
as the hub for the global structured credit derivatives business.”
Former high-yield sales manager in Morgan Stanley’s US team, Armins Rusis,
has relocated to London to head up European high-yield sales. He will report to
the global head of high yield, Mitch Petrick, and Jonathan Chenevix-Trench, head
of European fixed income.
Senior US high-yield trader Patrick Lynch has also crossed the Atlantic to become
head of European high-yield trading under Rusis. And Matt Courey, formerly a member
of Morgan Stanley’s high-yield credit research team in New York, has joined
Lynch’s London trading team.
Former high-yield industrials analyst at Goldman Sachs, Peter Morris, has joined
Morgan Stanley’s European credit research team. He will report to Cathy Gronquist.
Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley’s US team has also undergone some changes. Senior
high-yield trader Kevin O’Malley has been named head of high-yield syndicate
following the departure of Matt DeFusco. Steve Rosen, who has joined Morgan Stanley
in New York after 10 years with Lehman Brothers, will assume Rusis’s former
account relationships; while Michael Donaghue has taken on Rusis’s duties
as head of high-yield sales. Roger Gilbert, head of loan sales, has taken responsibility
for distressed sales.
At the same time, Michael Miller and Dan Allen have been appointed co-heads of
US corporate risk management. The two are heads of distressed corporate bond trading
and head of loan trading respectively. Kevin Corgan becomes head of high-yield
bond trading, and will report to Miller.
Finally, Matt Carter, formerly Morgan Stanley's airline sector analyst in the
high-yield research team, joins the trading group to trade high-yield transport
bonds; and Peter Tackus joins the trading team from Citigroup Asset Management.
Credit Suisse Asset Management (CSAM) has appointed Dennis Schaney, formerly at
BlackRock Financial Management, to the new position of global head of fixed income.
He becomes one of three global heads that oversee CSAM’s core businesses
– fixed income, equity and alternative investments.
Schaney joins CSAM after five years at BlackRock, where he was instrumental in
founding BlackRock’s high-yield business and where he was also co-head of
taxable credit research and a member of their investment strategy group. Previously,
Schaney spent nine years at Merrill Lynch and four years at First Boston.
Schaney will report to CSAM’s chief executive officer, Michael Kenneally,
who has been responsible for a series of structural changes since he joined CSAM
from Bank of America in March.
Kenneally says: “Dennis is a highly skilled fixed-income professional with
proven leadership skills and a strong track record of providing value to clients.
He is an experienced manager and business builder who started the successful high-yield
business at BlackRock from scratch.”
• Barclays Capital has hired
Ina Koren as a senior research analyst in its US securitization team in New
York responsible for the coverage of the home equity loans market. Koren joins
Barclays Capital from Wachovia Securities, where she was head of consumer asset-backed
securities research. Before that, she spent 11 years at Prudential Securities.
She will report to Mark Pibl, head of the US investment-grade and ABS research
unit. Nancy Gloor is also joining the firm as global head of fixed-income technology,
reporting to Kevin O’Reilly, head of IT and strategic planning. Gloor joins
from the London office of Goldman Sachs.
• Commerzbank Securities has hired three
debt professionals for its global credit teams in New York and London. In New
York, Eric Langille joins as head of US flow trading, from Bear Stearns, where
he worked in the fixed-income business. Stephen Lobb joins as head of credit
restructuring in London from Bank of Nova Scotia. Another addition to the London
team is Desmond Chopping as credit trader responsible for trading cash bonds
and credit default swaps in the media and technology sectors. Langille and Lobb
report to Michael Staveley, global head of credit trading. Chopping will report
to the European head of flow trading in London, a post that is still to be filled.
• Canadian rating agency Dominion Bond Rating
Service (DBRS) has beefed up its operations to provide a more comprehensive,
in-depth credit analysis. Manroop Jhooty joins DBRS’s structured finance
team as a senior financial analyst. Prior to joining DBRS, Jhooty worked for
three years in the mergers & acquisitions group of Monitor Company. Also
joining is Jarrett Bilous, who becomes senior financial analyst in DBRS’s
industrials and transportation team. Bilous moves from TD Securities, where
he was an institutional equities research associate for over three years in
the industrial products sector.
• RBC Capital Markets, the
investment banking unit of Royal Bank of Canada, has hired Jean-Luc Servat as
managing director and head of the US financial institutions group. Servat will
be based in San Francisco and report to Doug McGregor, head of global investment
banking. Most recently, Servat worked at Fox-Pitt, Kelton, where he was a managing
director and head of the West Coast financial institutions group.
• JPMorganChase has appointed Martin Labrecque
from Toronto Dominion Bank to the position of head of markets in Montreal, Canada.
Labrecque will be responsible for debt sales for JPMorganChase and replaces
Sean Sirois who has left the bank. The bank has also promoted Deep Kholsa of
Toronto to head the Montreal office. He reports to Adam Howard, the bank’s
chief executive in Canada.
• Scott Gewirtz has relocated to New York
from Deutsche Bank’s Frankfurt office. His role change involves taking
up the position of co-head of the US Treasury team, after being employed as
European co-head of fixed income. Michele Foresti, formerly co-head of European
fixed income will be in sole charge of the unit.
• Barclays Global Investors has added two
regional managers to its securities lending business. Kevin McNulty joins to
cover securities lending in Europe and Asia and Patrick Dunne becomes regional
manager in North America. McNulty will also have additional responsibility as
global coordinator of securities lending product development. Dunne will deal
with trading and product development in the US and Canada. Both report to Mike
Williams, global securities lending manager.
• Federated Investors has appointed Michael
Granito as senior vice president and head of capital market research. In his
new role, Granito will work with the firm’s investment units and sales
team.
