Calyon is planning to build a European high-yield business and has charged Tim Hall, previously managing director and head of emerging markets and high-yield capital markets at ING Bank in London, to start it from scratch. Hall, global head of high-yield debt and leveraged finance capital markets, started late last month. He said he plans to hire up to a dozen professionals across origination, research, sales and trading by the end of the second quarter of next year.
Hall reports to Jean-Michel Beacco in Paris, deputy head of global credit markets. Calyon is the merged entity of Credit Lyonnais and Credit Agricole Indosuez.
Calyon is aiming for a top-10 position in the Eurobond league tables, up five notches from its current spot. Hall said the bank is an active lender of global high-yield and emerging market debt, but lacks a capital markets business in these areas. He predicted its lending will generate business. "Having a strong balance sheet is critical to winning bond mandates," Hall pointed out. He added the French bank is committed to being a full-service provider to its creditor clients and now aims to offer them capital markets services across the credit spectrum.
Hall will tackle European high-yield first, because this is a more focused, higher-margin business that plays better to Calyon's lending footprint in France and the broader European Union. Emerging markets will come later since it is a global, largely dollar-denominated business and requires more infrastructure on the research and distribution fronts.
Hall left ING earlier this year after 10 years at the bank amid a reorganization aimed at aligning businesses along functional rather than geographic lines (BW, 9/13). Hall was responsible for setting up ING's European high-yield business in 1998 and later headed up emerging market debt capital markets.
