Bank of America announced three additions to its asset-backed securities team in London last week. Adam MacDonald, previously part of UBS's European securitization team, has joined as head of corporate securitization, Paul Wilde has joined as the head of U.K. financial institutions group securitization and Barry Hunter joined as an ABS structurer. Wilde was most recently head of corporate treasury at Egg plc where he led the development of several securitization programs and Hunter joins BofA from Amethyst Corporate Finance. The three men will report to Steve Skerrett, head of ABS origination for EMEA.
BNP Paribas announced last week the appointment of Brian Jalazo as head of corporate derivatives marketing in the U.S. In this newly created position, Jalazo, a managing director, will report to Jim Turner, head of debt capital markets for North America. Before joining BNP Paribas in 2001, as a senior member of the corporate derivatives team, Jalazo worked at Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank.
Sanford Goldstein has been named president of BluePoint Re, a financial guaranty reinsurance company wholly owned by Wachovia Corp. Goldstein was most recently a managing director and head of the real estate and secondary products group at MBIA Insurance. In his nine years at MBIA, he served a variety of management roles in several mortgage-backed and asset-backed securitization groups, with a particular focus on various emerging and esoteric asset class securitizations. In his new role, Goldstein will be based in Bermuda, and report to John McEvoy, BluePoint Re's chief executive officer.
James Brown just filed a claim against David Pullman, who structured the Bowie Bonds, staying that he ruined a deal that would have turned the legendary soul singer's career into a Wall Street commodity similar to David Bowie's, according to a New York Post report last week. In a suit filed last Monday in the New York state Supreme Court, Brown charged that Pullman pulled the plug on a loan Brown needed for the bonds because the singer owed him money for structuring the deal.
"He was my friend, and I'm surprised and shocked he'd do this," Brown reportedly told the Post while he was touring in Greece.
Following the opening of its London office in May of last year, Oak Hill Advisors announced on July 24, the closing of its first investment fund dedicated to the European leveraged finance market - Oak Hill European Credit Partners I P.L.C. - totaling 446 million euros ($560 million). "This fund, structured as a collateralized loan obligation, gives significant flexibility to invest in traditional leveraged loans, second lien loans, mezzanine loans and high yield securities. We believe this will better enable us to seek attractive risk-adjusted returns for investors and act as a more flexible financing partner to corporate issuers and private equity sponsors," said Ty Wallach, co-head of Oak Hill Advisors' London team with Richard Munn. Oak Hill Advisors has been investing in Europe for nearly 15 years, and has over 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) of capital invested in European companies.
U.S. Bank National Association, the lead bank of U.S. Bancorp, has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the municipal and corporate bond trustee business of SunTrust Banks. As a result of the transaction, U.S. Bank Corporate Trust Services will acquire approximately 4,700 new client issuance and assets under administration of $123 billion, represented by principal outstanding. Moreover, upon completion of this transaction, U.S. Bank's corporate trust division will have $2.5 trillion in assets under administration; 716,000 bondholders; more than 92,000 client issuances; and a new office in Orlando, Fla. Commenting on the agreement, Diane Thormodsgard, president of U.S. Bank Corporate Trust and Institutional Trust & Custody Services, said, "The U.S. Bank team will work with SunTrust to ensure continued quality service and a seamless transition for the customers," in a recent news release.
Fitch Ratings released VECTOR 3.0 last week, an updated version of its VECTOR default model in Beta format. Although Fitch claims that the release of the updated version does not change its fundamental credit view for the CDO sector, the new model updates assumptions of asset default probabilities, recovery rates, and correlation, and it also includes an updated framework for emerging markets. Moreover, the new version provides a more user-friendly interface, said Fitch, with the introduction of a reference entity feed. Commenting on the announcement, Ken Gill, managing director at Fitch in London, said, "The increase in leverage in the European high-yield sector is a risk we have been monitoring closely, and the updated assumptions reflect this view."
Standard & Poor's announced on Tuesday that it has assigned its highest rating, AAA', to the series 2006-21 credit-linked notes (SONATA 4) issued by Momentum CDO (Europe) Ltd. - an arbitrage synthetic CDO transaction referencing a portfolio compromised of 105 global names. According to S&P, the rating addresses the full and timely payment of interest and the ultimate full repayment of principal by the transaction's legal final maturity on September 30, 2011. In addition, S&P also pointed to ample credit support, counterparties involved in the transaction, including the CDS counterparty and the investment provider, having the required ratings at closing, the structure of the transaction incorporating the appropriate downgrade language in the documentation and the overall sound structure of the credit default swap as factors influencing the rating.
Currently managed in London and Hong Kong, Rabobank International, the global business division of Rabobank Nederland, announced the creation of a New York based equity and fund derivatives team within its global financial markets group. The new group, which will be led by Mark Garbin, managing director and head of equity and fund derivatives for Rabobank in the Americas, will focus on clients and business in the Americas region in the asset management, hedge funds, insurance and pension sectors. The group will also seek to expand Rabobank's existing retail equity derivatives product line, distributed through major third-party broker-dealers. Other key members of the Americas team includes: Joseph D'Anna, Ph.D., CFA, managing director and head of equity and fund derivatives structuring; Igor Tydniouk, Ph.D., vice president responsible for quantitative development; Marius Kerdel, vice president of structured product sales and origination; and Mark van der Straaten, vice president of structured product sales and origination. The group expects to add additional staff in the coming months, according to a recent press release.
Creditex and CreditTrade announced a merger to form a stronger force in the credit derivatives market last week. The new entity, Creditex Group, will have market positions in various sectors of the credit default swap (CDS) market, including European and North American indices and structured products. According to a recent press release, Creditex Group, with offices in New York, New Jersey, London and Singapore, is in position to execute over $2 trillion in notional value in 2006 of single name, emerging market, index and index tranche credit derivatives.
Barclays Capital announced another flurry of hires last week, as it added 10 professionals to its US leveraged finance team. The appointments include: Tim Broadbent, managing director, bank loan syndicate; Dave Scudellari, managing director, leveraged finance; Ed Kearns, Jack Melnikoff and Chris Dowicz, directors, bank loan sales; Ian Palmer, director, bank loan syndicate; and Faisal Hamdard, associate director, bank loan trading. These seven appointments will report to Rick Van Zijl, managing director and co-head of US leveraged finance; Scudellari will also report to Joe McGrath, managing director and co-head of U.S. leveraged finance.
The other three appointments comprise Kevin Baer, director and cash credit default swap (CDS) trader, who is reporting to Chris Yanney, director, head of US high yield cash and CDS trading; Sarah Cole, associate director, high yield sales, who is reporting to McGrath; and George Brickfield, associate director, distressed debt trading, who is reporting to Drew Doscher, director and head of US distressed debt trading.
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