Standard & Poor's plans to expand its European structured finance ratings group next year. Kurt Sampson, managing director of the team in London, said the rating agency is looking to hire five to eight staffers next year to meet the increased collateralized debt obligation deal flow. The rating agency currently has 65 analysts for European structured finance as a whole. Sampson said the growth rate of synthetic deals is outpacing that of straight cash structures and he expects this to continue. "This has proved to be a very attractive form of risk transfer, but for us the credit work is exactly the same [as for a cash deal]," he said.
Moody's Investors Service plans to expand its CDO and securitization teams (DW, 11/19) and Fitch aims to hire roughly seven CDO rating analysts (DW, 11/26).
