DrKW Sets Up Credit Hybrids Team

Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein is setting up a credit hybrids team and has hired Tong Lee, global head of trading at General Re Financial Products in London, to lead the charge. Lee is considered an ideal candidate for such a role because of his experience across asset classes. At Gen Re, a shop known for its expertise in exotic derivatives, Lee was responsible for managing hybrid exposures as part of his role on the firm's risk committee. He was previously an interest rate options trader at BNP and before that a foreign exchange options trader at Sumitomo Trust and Banking in New York. Lee declined comment.

Hybrid derivatives products are one of the hottest areas of the market at the moment, with several firms such as ABN AMRO setting up joint ventures to structure the instruments

(DW, 3/21). Indeed, David Coulter, chairman of the investment bank, private equity, investment management and private banking businesses at JPMorgan in New York, said one of the advantages of its recent acquisition of Bank One is to offer retail investors hybrid structured products (DW, 4/4).

At DrKW, Lee will report to Matteo Mazzocchi, global head of credit derivatives and securitization in London. Mazzocchi was on vacation and could not be reached.

Gen Re announced in January 2002 it planned to close and let go some 60% of its 300 staff. Since then, it has gradually whittled down the remaining staff and now just has a skeleton operation.