BNP Paribas rebuilds after CDO departures

BNP Paribas has moved to replace three structured credit bankers who joined Citigroup last month by hiring a new head of European collateralised debt obligations from Credit Suisse.

Christos Danias joined BNP Paribas today, reporting to Fabrice Susini, head of European securitisation.

The hire follows the departure last month of three CDO bankers to Citigroup. Orestis Millas, Till Kollmar and Mounir Naffi joined the US bank on April 27.

Danias has worked in the structured credit markets for over 10 years, most recently in the CDO group at Credit Suisse. He joined the Swiss bank in December 2001 after spells at Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley.

BNP Paribas is expected to make further hires to its CDO team in the coming weeks, according to sources close to the bank.

For Citigroup, the hires signal its latest push into structured credit. Early last month Citigroup hired Deutsche's Michael Raynes to head its global structured credit business.

Raynes is responsible for all structured credit products, including credit default swaps and CDOs. He is set to join in the summer and will report to Chad Leat, head of global credit markets.

BNP Paribas this morning also announced the hires of Cristiano Committeri as head of Italian flow sales within its equities and derivatives group and Luigi Belato as a salesperson in the same team.

Committeri and Belato, who joined the bank last Thursday and are based in London, report to Claudio D'Angelo, head of institutional flow sales for London.

They join the bank from Lehman Brothers where Committeri was an executive director and Belato an analyst in the Italian equity derivatives sales team.

A spokeswoman for BNP Paribas said last month that the bank planned to hire 200 people to its equity derivatives group this year, doubling the number it hired in 2005. It will bring total equity derivatives front office headcount to 900.