Jobs roundup: Banks hire credit specialists
A weekly snapshot of movements in the job market:
A spate of hiring in structured credit roles last week reflects confidence that many credit products are in increasing demand.
Barclays Capital, Banc of America Securities, Commerzbank, and ABN Amro all hired for their credit teams in the UK or the US. Staff were also recruited into securitisation and tax driven finance roles.
The hires maintain a trend of recruitment hire at senior levels. Citigroup hired a new head of quantitative credit strategy two weeks ago. Fund managers have also been hiring credit research staff in recent weeks.
The origins of the hunger for credit experts are not difficult to find. The International Securities and Derivatives Association (ISDA) says the global credit derivatives market was worth $2.15 trillion in 2002. McKinsey, the management consultancy, predicts this could soar to $15 trillion in 2007.
Tim Frost, head of credit trading at JP Morgan in Europe, said: 'The real constraint is that the market is growing incredibly fast and expert staff are not widely available.'
From this perspective, last week's hirers can perhaps count themselves lucky. Banc of America Securities added two staff (Andrew Jackson from Fitch Ratings and Afif Baccouche from Citigroup) to its global structured products team, covering structured credit and tax related investments. This followed its recruitment of two staff to its credit research team in July.
ABN Amro hired Richard Whittle from UBS Investment Bank as global head of exotic credit derivatives, after recruiting Victoria Whitehead from Bear Stearns to its credit research team a few weeks ago.
Commerzbank last week recruited a head of US flow trading, a European head of credit structuring, and a credit trader, as part of a restructuring of its fixed income business. Earlier in August, the bank recruited Philip Crate from Bear Stearns to run its global credit research function.
Barclays Capital last week brought in a new head of credit trading information technology with the hire of Dominic Thwaites from Lehman Brothers.
Also in the structured products area, Goldman Sachs hired a structured finance analyst from Fitch for its commercial mortgage-backed securities team.
WestLB hired a director to originate and structure tax driven transactions with financial institutions.
