Fitch Ratings is looking to hire someone at the associate director level to work in its collateralized debt obligation asset manager evaluation group, according to an official at the company. The hire, which would be a new role, would work on Fitch's current two-person team to analyze the collateral managers of CDOs. It comes as investors in CDOs pay more attention to the firm that's managing these deals, amid high levels of downgrades over the last few years and a gradual weeding out of weaker collateral managers. The hire would report to Said Rafat, head of the group, who was said to be out of the office last week and did not return a call. Fitch has begun to incorporate its CDO manager ratings into its overall analysis of specific deals by quantifying managers' ability (BW, 5/19). Standard & Poor's has a similar group--and is also looking to add to it (BW, 7/28).
Rating Agency Hunts For CDO Manager Analyst