Calyon Plans Big Boost in Structured Credit

French investment bank Calyon has revealed plans to increase headcount in its structured credit markets division by more than a third next year, as collateralised debt obligation issuance rose year-on-year to near a fresh peak of $106 billion.

Calyon, the corporate and investment bank of France's Crédit Agricole, said it would increase the number of specialists in its credit markets and collateralized debt obligations group from 180 to more than 240.

The development comes at the end of a record eight-year high of CDO issuance, which this year rose a third from about $ 79 billion last year, according to Deutsche Bank.

Loic Fery, managing director and global head of credit markets at Calyon, said: "The growth of our credit markets and CDO activities will come from a balanced mix of synthetic correlation and cash CDO credit products, with a particular emphasis on North America, where we intend to double our CDO activity next year."

As part of the move, Calyon said it will also temporarily move part of a team from its London office to its CDO structuring, sales and trading team in the U.S., in an effort to plug the gap left by a team of 12 specialists poached by Japanese investment bank Mizuho.

The team will form a new structured credit and debt capital markets group within Mizuho's global fixed income business and will be led by Alexander Rekeda, formerly head of Calyon's U.S. cash CDO business.

Edouard Bremond, head of European cash CDO structuring, is the most senior banker to have been relocated in the US. Bremond is working with Zain Abdullah, managing director and head of US credit markets.

Bob Rosman, a senior asset-backed securities and CDO trader, has also been moved to New York to work with Thomas Spitz, head of U.S. credit markets and CDO trading.

Fery said: "We expect to appoint a new head of U.S. cash CDO structuring within the next few weeks, and will also add other CDO professionals to the New York team as planned."

Its also understood that Priya Arora, who was head of cash CDO structuring at Calyon, has left the bank.

The boost to Calyon's structured credit team comes amid losses in its European leveraged finance and high-yield businesses.

Canada's CIBC World Markets hired a nine-strong team of leveraged finance bankers last month while the firm lost its European head of high yield sales, Kenton Jernigan, to U.S. investment bank Jefferies last week.

Separately, Calyon has named Thomas Gadenne as its finance director and a member of the executive committee.

Gadenne was a former head of treasury at Lazard and most recently at the Crédit Agricole group.

At Calyon he will be responsible for all tax issues and any decisions on passive or active management of its treasury operations.