Aladdin Capital has unveiled its new strategy designed to take advantage of the changing and deteriorating market environment in credit.
"We have downsized the CLO, CDO and CSO areas and are losing some staff," says Neal Neilinger, vice-chair at Aladdin.
"We’re looking at all the centres but the losses will mainly be in Stamford where the bulk of the origination and structuring staff are," he says.
While it is losing 15 out of 75 staff based in the US – the head office is in Stamford, Connecticut, Aladdin is hiring officials in other sectors. Aladdin was an early player in the CDO business, starting in 1999. The collapse of demand for structured credit means that the credit hedge fund and CDO manager is shifting its strategy. Although it is scaling back its origination capacity, it has hired a number of bankers for investment banking roles, and sales and trading activities.
Neilinger told Euromoney that Aladdin is developing advisory and investment banking businesses, augmenting its sales and trading and traditional asset management areas via senior hires and selective acquisitions.
The fund has hired two former Deutsche Bank officials, Laura Fazio and Nan Logan, who are media and telecom investment bankers.