US investment bank Bear Stearns claimed its European property securitisation plans were still on track, despite the departure on Tuesday of head of European securitisation Andy Clapham.
The circumstances of his departure are unclear. A colleague on Tuesday said: “I really can’t comment – we have just heard the news ourselves.” Head of debt corporate finance Yves Leysen said Clapham – senior managing director and head of European principal and asset-backed finance – would not be replaced and that his London team would now report to Leysen.
He said: “I don’t want to comment on the size of our loan book but in the next couple of months you will see our first UK securitisation and we will expand into Europe.”
Clapham’s departure overshadowed the announcement of five new appointments. Adam Toft is joining from Moody’s as managing director. He will be responsible for originating, structuring and distributing property loans.
Halifax Bank of Scotland’s Peter McAnally and Marie Fernandez will be in charge of the origination of euro-denominated property loans.
Michael Dirnegger, who joins from Austrian bank RZB, will be in charge of originating real estate loans, and residential mortgages in Germany; and Jesus Rio Cortes, formerly of French financial group Calyon, will also be on Richard Downer’s residential mortgages team, focusing on Spain and Portugal.
|
|
|
The US investment bank’s long heralded European CMBS loan conduit has been hit by a series of senior defections. In January Tim Jones, Bear Stearns’ co-head of origination, left to join Credit Suisse First Boston to originate UK and Irish loans for CSFB’s commercial real estate lending programme. And in April 2004 managing directors Scott Dickens and Nitin Bhandari left to join rival investment bank Nomura. CMBS conduits are programmes under which banks make commercial mortgage loans and issue bonds secured on them. |
