Citi’s ex-hedge fund unit hires securitisation star

Napier Park Capital, Citi’s former hedge fund unit, has made its first UK-based hire for nearly two years with Maxine Malaure, a senior securitisation specialist, joining the firm earlier this month.

Investment bankers who specialist in collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) have understandably had their career options limited since the financial crisis, moving from being viewed as high-earning innovators into the villains of the sub-prime crisis.

Malaure was dubbed a ‘rising star’ of securitisation in 2008 when, at just 32, he had already made it to managing director at Bear Stearns, heading their FAST CDO business, before moving on to managing director of Dresdner Kleinwort’s Cash CDO division ahead of its acquisition by Commerzbank. For the past five years, he has been working in Commerzbank’s structured capital markets division, on the securitised products desk.

“For me, every structure must push the boundaries and bring something new,” he told Institutional Investor magazine in 2008. “The recent market turmoil requires innovation more than ever, and I am fired up by the opportunities it opens.”

Napier Park spun out of Citi as an employee-owned hedge fund with around $6bn in assets under management at the end of 2012. It invests in mortgage-backed securities and complex credit instruments that were formerly managed by Citi Capital Advisors.

It employs around 100 people worldwide, but its London office has been shrinking – going from 22 people to just ten over the past 12 months. Malaure is the first person to gain Financial Conduct Authority approval at Napier Park since June 2012.

As we reported previously, some senior portfolio managers have departed recently. Krishnan Sadasivam, a former partner at Brevan Howard, left Napier Park in December for Millennium Capital as did Alex Shaw, who was a global macro trader at the firm.

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