CIBC World Markets plans to reenter the North American structured credit market in 2006 after nearly a three-year absence. David Allan, global head of asset securitization and credit structuring, said CIBC plans to add more personnel in its New York office and will be looking to roll out a few collateralized debt obligations next year.
Monty Qureshi, managing director, moved to the New York office in June to help the group ramp up. Currently there are nine individuals three in Toronto, the rest in New York -- working full-time on developing the CDO business in North America. There are 14 employees in Europe working on that CDO group. Over the next year, Allen intends to add at least five more employees in New York and anticipates doing between five to 10 collateralized debt obligations a year in addition to total return swap plays. In North America, the group currently has about two or three deals in the pipeline.
CIBC's CDO group was active from 1996 to 2002, cranking out both market value and cash flow deals. But when team leader Ken Wormser left and took most of the staff with him -- to joinCDC-IXIS Capital Markets in 2003, things slowed down.
"We always wanted to reenter the market," Allan said. "It was one of those things, where there are various matters out of our control, personnel changes, the Enron settlement with the Department of Justice. We didn't have control over that and we drifted away from [this platform] and when we drifted away, the question became, 'how do we want to come back and what was our focus going to be?'"
