HSBC is expanding its structured credit product teams in both New York and London as it continues its campaign to become a major global credit derivatives house. Rick Ziwot, head of structured credit products in New York, said he plans to grow the department to 25 staff members from its current 14 by the end of the first quarter.
In May last year, HSBC hired two of Bank of America's leading credit derivatives professionals--Ziwot, who was BofA's global head of structured credit products, and Rick Briggs, who was global head of trading for structured credit products (DW, 5/6). Ziwot said getting the business up and running has taken time, but since August the group has structured six synthetic CDOs totaling USD4.5 billion, and will launch its cash CDO business at the beginning of the year. The group will increase the number of synthetic transactions it executes next year, although he would not estimate the number of deals it plans to complete.
Nobby Clark, head of structured credit trading at HSBC in London, has also been given a mandate to expand his group and will be looking to hire two or three marketers within the next three to four months. Clark said the team currently comprises five senior members--including traders and structurers--and a handful of junior staffers.
Clark's team structures products which include first-to-default baskets, bespoke tranches of collateralized debt obligations and credit-linked notes. The newly-hired marketers will focus on Europe, but will be based in London. Clark recently hired Declan Tiernan from National Commercial Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, as a structurer for the group (DW, 11/18). The credit derivatives groups in London and New York are managed separately.
