As Société Générale continues to build up its U.S. platform, it has hired Neil Goulden as the U.S. head of restructuring from GE Capital. The business is currently open and he is talking to prospects and other lenders in the market. Financings will start at $25 million and he said he is hopeful it will be able to bring a deal to market soon.
Goulden will be looking to expand his team, and expects to add a senior person in New York. He works out of Chicago. Additional hires will depend upon market and client demand. There is currently no time frame in place for when it will begin hiring.
The firm started the restructuring business because it thought the market for it is robust and it anticipates demand will continue to grow. Goulden decided to move because he was excited for the opportunity to start up a platform. "The opportunity to start up a restructuring group does not happen very often," he said. "Most already have one or they decide they don't want to participate [in that market]. These opportunities don't come up often." He has worked in the restructuring area most of his career, most recently at GE as a senior v.p. in its restructuring group. Before that he was the chief workout counsel and chief litigation counsel for Heller Finance.
A GE spokesman could not immediately comment on who had replaced Goulden.
SG has been building up its U.S. leveraged finance business since the beginning of the year after a four-year absence (CIN, 1/16/2006). After initially putting some employees in place to start it, it has slowly been hiring to build a permanent platform. It hired Patrick Wallace as a loan trader in November from BNP Paribas who reports to Terry Sanabria. It hired Todd Rogers from Nationalal City in August as a salesman and hired John Gorham from UBS and Roxana Pechero from BNP also to work in sales (6/30). Mark London, who was hired from ABN AMRO in September, heads U.S. debt structuring and syndication. He reports to Paolo Taddonio, head of debt finance in the Americas (9/25). In March the bank hired Michael Finkelman from BNP to head the leveraged finance business (3/31).