Monolines hire London ABS bankers
It's tempting to look for a trend when two well-known ex-Commerzbankers join monolines. But the moves of Marc Bajer to Assured Guaranty and Iain Barbour to MBIA are both company-specific.
Assured Guaranty has only been licensed to operate in Europe for 15 months and needs someone in a business development role in Europe since the departure of Jack Lester, the previous head of its London operations, to the US.
As for Barbour, it is rare for the big monolines to run a full-time investor relations team in Europe, but MBIA is still dealing with the fallout from its restatement of earnings back in March. The restatement concerned the retroactive reinsurance of losses on bonds issued by the Allegheny Health, Education and Research Foundation, and knocked nearly $10 off MBIA's share price. In August, the SEC said that it might charge MBIA over the Allegheny deals. At times like this, you need credible personnel talking to investors around the world.
Brindle joins MarketAxess as CDS platform starts
MarketAxess has launched its client to multi-dealer electronic credit default swap (CDS) index trading system in London and New York.