The increasing focus on principal finance in Europe was further in evidence in July when UBS hired Andrea Perona from BNP Paribas. Perona will head a new principal finance business at UBS that lost three of its senior securitization team to Bank of America in early 2005. He was previously head of southern European securitization at BNP Paribas.
Since the departure of Steve Skerrett, Drew Allen and Greg Kosinski, UBS has rebuilt its team, hiring Matthew Froggatt from Credit Suisse to focus on mortgage and consumer assets and Steve Cook from Morgan Stanley to head whole business securitization. Peter Shorthouse took over as head of the business. UBS has been an active investor in European ABS through its team headed by John Deacon, executive director and head of debt principal finance in London.
