Henry Schmeltzer, a heavyweight of the European structured credit markets and most recently managing director and head of European credit structuring at Swiss Re Capital Management & Advisory in London, is joining UBS. He starts later this month as executive director and head of European structured asset-backed securities, a new role.
Schmeltzer told BW he is looking to build up the UBS franchise in structured ABS, drawing on solutions from other areas of structured products to generate new approaches. "Henry adds a skill set to our group that will be extremely complementary," said Drew Allan, head of European ABS syndicate and trading. Schmeltzer reports to Allan and Steve Skerrett, head of European securitization.
Schmeltzer started his banking career at Lehman Brothers in New York in 1996, where he was part of the derivative finance group that repackaged an entire range of fixed-income assets. At Lehman in London, his repackaging responsibilities included hedge fund assets as well as credit. He later moved to Merrill Lynch, where he ran the structured credit products group before moving to Swiss Re in London. At Swiss Re, Schmeltzer focused primarily on credit assets. The move to UBS will be accompanied by a new focus as he will concentrate on originating straight ABS, since credit is covered by a separate group.
At Swiss Re, Schmeltzer reported to Frank Ronan, managing director and head of credit in New York. Ronan declined all comment.
