Babson Capital Management is ramping up global distribution with the establishment of the global business development group, as well as the hiring of a new global sales head and its first sales leader for Australia.
Thomas Finke, chairman and CEO of Babson Capital, established the global business development group, which is responsible for sales, client management, marketing and product development, and has selected Anthony Sciacca to lead it.
Sciacca, managing director, is also the head of the firm's middle market bank loan business for its U.S. bank loan team in Charlotte and has been with Babson Capital since 2006.
Reporting toSciacca are Jean Fleischhacker, managing director, who leads global sales and the client management team and recently joined the firm from JPMorgan/Bear Stearns; Paula Ryan, managing director, who leads marketing and consultant relations; and Linda Carstens, managing director, who leads strategic product development.
In addition, the firm has hired Duncan Robertson, managing director, to lead sales for Australia. Robertson reports to Fleischhacker and is the first hire for the firm's new branch office in Sydney, which is called Babson Capital Australia.
Sciacca has more than 15 years of industry experience and joined Babson Capital from Wachovia Securities, where he was head of origination for the CLO and corporate CDO businesses. He previously worked in structured products at Bear Stearns and Bank of America and was a consultant with Andersen Consulting (Accenture).
Fleischhacker was recently with JPMorgan and previously at Bear Stearnswhere she was senior managing director and head of structured product sales. Her background includes industry sales, marketing and portfolio management in a broad array of products. Before joining Bear, in 1993, she was with Alliance Capital Management Corp.
Ryan joined Babson Capital in February 2007. She previously was with Hartford Investment Management for eight years in marketing for both institutional and retail investment products, and before that worked in institutional marketing for Prudential Investments. Ryan also had marketing roles with Equitable Capital Management (now Alliance Capital) and Nathan & Lewis Associates.
Carstens joined Babson Capital in 2004 from State Street Research and Management, where she managed large corporate and foundation/endowment relationships. Previously at Mellon Bank, she was a corporate banker for chemical industry relationships and responsible for formulating credit policy for the chemical industry. She began her career at Drexel Burnham Lambert and worked at both DuPont and Dow Chemical.
Robertson was responsible for all fixed-income distribution activities for Merrill Lynch in Australia and New Zealand since early 2006. He also spent more than seven years with Westpac Banking Corp., working primarily in the areas of corporate and structured Finance.
