Job Swaps
Bank builds up structured credit desk
The latest company and people moves
Bank builds up structured credit desk
BNP Paribas has appointed Adnan Zuberi as a director on the structured credit desk in New York. He reports to Jerome Wong, md, head of credit structuring, Americas.
Zuberi joins from JPMorgan, where he was an executive director in structured credit since 2007 and was responsible for structuring for North American real money accounts. Prior to that, he spent five years at UBS in structured credit derivatives, most recently as head of credit derivatives structuring. He also spent three years at Credit Suisse in the CDO group.
Commenting on the appointment, Wong says: "Adnan is a great addition to the team, as we continue to expand our business opportunistically in this challenging environment."
Asia structuring head hired
Barclays Capital has hired Chak Wong, as an md, head of structuring in investment banking Asia Pacific. He will lead the Asia Pacific structuring team within investment banking on a cross asset-class basis and reports to Patrick Kwan, md, head of derivatives and financing solutions, investment banking Asia Pacific.
Wong joins Barclays Capital from UBS, where he was md and co-head of the Asia Pacific structured products group, responsible for designing and trading structured derivatives. Prior to that, he spent a number of years with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as a quant structurer and derivatives trader.
Legal head moves to banking role
Barclays Capital's UK and Europe legal head Jake Scrivens is understood to have taken up a non-legal role at the bank. In September he will reportedly become head of the structured credit portfolio. Magnus Spencer, BarCap's Asia-Pacific regional general counsel will assume the UK and Europe legal role.
Credit trading head quits
Lionel Gibert, the London-based head of European credit trading at Société Générale has resigned. No replacement has yet been appointed.
Bear trader hired...
Morgan Stanley has hired Alan Yeoh as an executive director in structured credit products, where he will trade credit options. Yeoh was previously co-head of structured credit trading at Bear Stearns in Europe, having joined the bank just over a year ago in June 2007. Before joining Bear Stearns, he worked at Credit Suisse.
...while structurer moves on
Thomas Kyriakoudis, vp and structurer on Morgan Stanley's structured credit desk, is understood to have joined Permira.
Credit prop head leaves
John Gisborne, vice chairman of the credit products group at TD Securities, has left. He ran the credit prop trading business in London. The bank is rumoured to have hired Greg Rosen from Credit Suisse to take over some of Gisborne's duties.
Private equity group buys into structured credit manager
European private equity firm Cinven has acquired a 50% stake in Indicus Advisors, an alternative investment manager focusing on European leveraged finance and global structured credit. Indicus will, however, remain a distinct firm and will continue to be managed by its current partners. Cinven will retain its own focus on its core business of private equity.
"The disruption in the debt markets over the last 12 months has produced a much healthier environment for corporate debt investors. Investing in debt through a top class manager can now deliver attractive returns with relatively low risk, and as an investment class, it is highly complementary to private equity," comments Cinven partner Andrew Joy.
David Reilly and Ujjaval Desai founded Indicus in 2006, which today has 17 professionals located in London and New York with approximately US$1.75bn of assets under management. The firm also advises on over US$2bn of structured investments for several large institutional investors.
Sorin hires coo
Sorin Capital Management has hired Matt Chasin as coo, partner and member of the investment committee. He will be responsible for all non-investment activities, focusing on the operational and financial aspects of Sorin Capital Management, as well as managing all borrowing relationships and activities for the Sorin funds.
Before joining Sorin, Chasin was a senior md and head of repo financing activities for mortgage and structured products at Bear Stearns. His responsibilities included financing Bear Stearns' global mortgage and structured product position, and all trading, hedging and risk management of the firm's mortgage matched book business. Chasin's responsibilities also included the management of Liquid Funding and Master Funding, two financing conduits utilised by Bear Stearns.
Duff hires CDO saleswoman
Duff Capital Advisors has announced the expansion of senior management with the addition of five new hires. Amongst them is Laura Flynn, who joins as md in the client advisory group. Flynn was previously vp at Lehman Brothers, where she sold single-name CDS, CDX products and CDOs.
Palatium hires from Citi
Palatium Investment Management, which was created through an MBO of Eurohypo Asset Management (see SCI issue 90), has recruited a specialist mezzanine and preferred equity team from Citi to manage its planned fund in this area. Keith Davidson and James Tarry have joined Palatium as md and director respectively, having been director and vp in Citi's London real estate debt group.
However, both had also previously worked in Eurohypo's real estate investment banking division until 2007. Prior to Eurohypo, Davidson worked in real estate structured finance in Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank, while Tarry worked in structured asset finance at Deutsche Bank and was also a chartered accountant with KPMG.
Palatium is continuing to recruit an experienced team in order to target the opportunity rewards its clients seek through a series of highly targeted funds. Neil Lawson-May, joint chief executive of Palatium, comments: "Each appointment demonstrates our commitment to recruiting a highly experienced, proven team to pursue the opportunities that exist in real estate and real estate debt. Having worked with Keith and James in the past, I am confident that our planned mezzanine and preferred equity funds could not be in better hands. Not only do they both know these markets intimately, but they also understand how our clients like to invest."
Davidson says: "We have known Paul and Neil for many years, so know just how carefully they have planned Palatium. We are confident that Palatium will provide an enduring platform to deliver returns from mezzanine and preferred equity thanks not only to the short-term dislocations in today's market, but also to the longer-term structural changes in the banking environment. We are genuinely excited about the potential of establishing and managing these specialist funds."
Interdealer broker targets new areas
Tradition, the interdealer broker, has launched an Islamic and Capital Markets desk in Dubai and London. The desk is a joint venture between Tradition in London and Asia, and is licensed by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA). It will offer broker services for trading of sukuks, inter-bank money market transactions by murabaha (commodity-based Islamic finance), as well as CDS and global currency products.
Tradition's Islamic and Capital Markets team will report to Will Hornby, head of credit in London. Ali Merchant will lead the Dubai team. He has 28 years' experience in the market, 16 as treasurer of two Middle Eastern banks.
Joining Merchant will be Muhammad Talha, who has 29 years' experience in four banks and was previously head of international banking at Qatar International Bank for 10 years. David Barker will lead the London team. He joins Tradition from Tullett Prebon and will handle trading of sukuks, CDS and convertible bonds.
New ceo at microfinance firm
Jean-Pierre Klumpp has been promoted to ceo of BlueOrchard Finance, the Geneva-based microfinance investment advisor. Klumpp is taking over from Jack Lowe, who will remain as president of BlueOrchard USA. In this position, he will lead new financial services for the microfinance sector on behalf of the BlueOrchard group.
Klumpp has been acting as BlueOrchard Finance's coo since June 2007. He came to BlueOrchard from the private banking executive committee of Julius Baer in Zurich. Prior to this, he was ceo of Ehinger & Armand von Ernst in Zurich and coo of Ferrier Lullin & Cie in Geneva (both private banks of the UBS group).
Lowe joined BlueOrchard as its ceo in November 2004, with the mission of managing the rapid growth of the company and developing its range of products and services, as well as building up its international recognition with the institutional investor community. Under his management, the company extended its network of institutional investors; and it has proposed innovative products that have attained international recognition, such as BlueOrchard's three structured microfinance investment vehicles (see SCI issue 97 for more).
Further to retaining a role in the development of BlueOrchard's services, Lowe plans to devote more time to his existing personal businesses and to his philanthropic engagements.
Structured finance veteran joins S&P
S&P has appointed David Jacob as executive md and head of structured finance ratings. He will report to Vickie Tillman, evp, S&P Ratings Services.
A pioneer in the securitisation industry, Jacob has 25 years of experience in fixed income investment analysis and the structured finance markets. In his new role he will have oversight responsibility for all of S&P structured finance operations. He replaces Tillman, who has been acting head since January when Joanne Rose became executive md for Risk and Quality Policy at S&P.
During his career, Jacob has held a number of senior positions at financial institutions, including Nomura where he led the structuring department and was later md and head of international fixed income research. At JPMorgan he was md, head of fixed income research, and previous to that he served as vp, head of quantitative analytics at Morgan Stanley.
Most recently, Jacob was a principal with Adelson & Jacob Consulting. He began his career as an analyst at Moody's and Equitable Life Assurance.
Caliber set to liquidate
Cambridge Place Investment Managers has announced it will seek approval from its shareholders to liquidate the Caliber fund. The manager had previously stated that it would liquidate the fund by June 2008 and distribute proceeds to shareholders, but deferred a decision citing market conditions.
The company's NAV fell by US$4.6m to US$9.9m over the last three months and the EGM to approve the appointment of a liquidator is set for September. The board of directors says that this is a natural progression to achieving the investment objective of returning capital to shareholders.
Queen's Walk Investment Ltd has also announced that at the EGM of the company held on 12 August shareholders authorised its proposed tender offer, whereby the company will repurchase 2,999,981 ordinary shares.
Meanwhile, permacap Volta Finance announced that, as of the end of July 2008, its gross asset value (GAV) was €166.2m or €5.53 per share, a decrease of €0.39 from €5.92 per share at the end of June 2008. This decrease is the consequence of the decline in the value of the ABS portfolio.
The July mark-to-market variations of Volta Finance's asset classes have been: -34.4% for ABS investments; -1% for CDO investments; and -1% for corporate credit investments.
Kamakura and Zylog team up
Zylog Systems will distribute the Kamakura Risk Manager enterprise-wide risk management system in India and South Asia. Zylog Systems, a global software company, works extensively with major banks in India through its offices in Chennai, Mumbai and New Delhi.
The Kamakura Risk Manager (KRM) system is said to be the world's first risk system that analyses market risk, credit risk, asset and liability management, funds transfer pricing and liquidity risk all in a single integrated solution. The KRM system is also used for Basel II capital calculations and to meet the requirements of key accounting standards regarding hedge accounting (FAS 133 and IAS 39) and the valuation of complex structured finance instruments (FAS 157).
CME and NYMEX merger approved
Shareholders of CME Group and NYMEX have approved the proposed merger of the two exchanges.
CME group executive chairman Terry Duffy says: "The addition of NYMEX to CME Group creates an even stronger international company as we continue to grow our business globally and compete with exchanges and the over-the-counter market. The combination of these exchanges will create immediate and long-term value for our shareholders and customers, as we are now the only exchange to offer access to every global benchmark product."
20/08/2008
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