© 2024 Arizent. All rights reserved.

Credit Suisse hire signals Asian intent

Credit Suisse has moved to regain some lost ground in the ex-Japan Asia securitization scene, which stagnated after the departure of Greg Park as its head of Asian ABS in June 2004 (ASR, 06/14/04).

The bank has transferred Stella Tansengco from London, where she has been based since 1993, to its Hong Kong office, where she will lead efforts to originate new mandates by the Asian asset finance capital markets team. Tansengco reports to Patrick Eng, head of Credit Suisse's Australia and ex-Japan Asia asset finance group.

During and prior to Park's tenure, Credit Suisse was one of the more active arrangers in Asia. Despite the lack of a high-profile mandate for two years, Eng believes there are opportunities for the bank to offer ABS products to compliment other funding methods.

"Stella will fill the role of spearheading our origination effort in the region, and we feel it is a good time to invest more resources in Asia," Eng said. "She has an excellent reputation within the group and this is a good fit for her and the team. Credit Suisse has a well-established presence in Asia a variety of product areas - debt capital markets, leveraged finance, equity financing - and furthering our ABS resources will benefit clients as we can offer the best solution to their funding needs."

As is the trend among other international firms, Eng said the bank will look to build its principal finance business in addition to looking for arranging fees.

"The focus will continue to be on clients and we also see opportunities to expand the principal finance business," he added. "Initially, we want to leverage our existing client relationships, and the ABS group will work in tandem with other groups to offer deeper product solutions." He also said that they would not be doing deals just for the sake of league tables; they need to be profitable and benefit clients. So aside from the public transactions, Eng said they will focus on private solutions.

Eng added that securitization opportunities vary from country to country: you have the developed markets such as Australia, Japan and Korea. He explained that the other markets are developing their own models, driven by the regulatory framework and how assets are originated in each country. In some markets, the focus is on raising funds, and in others securitization is more used as a risk management tool, Eng said.

(c) 2006 Asset Securitization Report and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.asreport.com http://www.sourcemedia.com

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM ASSET SECURITIZATION REPORT