Citibank has mandated Salomon Smith Barney to arrange a Euro-denominated credit card securitization. WestLB and CDC Marches will be joint leads. Further details were unavailable.
Alan Liu recently joined the Asian Securitisation Group at Credit Lyonnais in Hong Kong. Liu will report to Greg Park, head of the group. Park and Liu are both ex-employees at ING Barings in Hong Kong. Liu was the last to leave ING's securitization team, leaving the firm with no ABS staff in the region at present.
Moody's recently gave a Prime-1 rating to Japan's first loan-backed ABCP program. Typhoon Funding Corporation, set up by Commerzbank Tokyo, will issue up to 300 billion CP backed by loans and trade receivables in the Japanese market.
Catherine Gerst, managing director of Moody's France and co-head of European structured finance, has been given increased responsibility to include oversight of European mutual funds. In this capacity Gerst will report to Michel Madelain, managing director, European ratings.
Moody's said that the move takes place against a background of a 35% increase in its European staff over the last 12 months.
