Barclays Capital has added two more directors as part of its effort to bulk up its U.S. leveraged finance business. The hires will report to Joe McGrath and Rick Van Zijl, heads of U.S. leveraged finance, who jointly lead the leveraged finance and origination groups. McGrath leads high-yield distribution and Van Zijl is in charge of leveraged loans and mezzanine finance. Both joined from Goldman Sachs.
The new hires are Josef Norflus as a director in leveraged corporate origination, from Goldman Sachs, and Ron Kubick as a director in leveraged finance execution. He previously worked at GE Corporate Lending as a senior v.p. in origination in the restructuring finance group. They join two other former Goldman pros, Mark Jenkins, a director in leveraged corporate origination, responsible for the energy and power sectors, and Jeffery Rowbottom, a director who will be head of U.S. high-yield syndicate (CIN, 3/6). Additionally, Chris Turner moved to New York from the high-yield capital markets and syndicate desk in London, to serve as a managing director in leveraged corporate origination.
David Scudellari is currently on garden leave from Goldman Sachs, and will be joining Barclays in the future. It could not be determined when he would start and McGrath declined to comment.
McGrath said the firm will need to hire more than 100 people in the next three-to-five years to staff the area. "The firm's view is to build a broad leveraged finance platform in the U.S. and in my opinion that means origination, both bank and bonds, folks in origination, both sponsor-focused and corporate capital markets people," he said. He noted the bank also needs distribution staff to move the product as well as loan and bond sales, trading, research and syndicate functions. McGrath said Barclays also plans to have mezzanine capabilities. He anticipates having the personnel and infrastructure in place to begin participating in transactions by the summer, but said a more realistic timeframe to begin leading transactions, especially on the bond side, would be the fourth quarter of this year.
McGrath said Barclays will be focused on specific industries, including the energy and power sector, the gaming, lodging and leisure area, the industrial space and the telecom, media and technology space. "As we build our franchise and we find people that have specific skill sets and relationships, that may broaden that activity set out beyond those four. But in the meantime we think we have a good base," he said.
The firm plans to utilize its contacts in Europe, especially its sponsor relationships and contacts with buysiders based both in Europe and in the U.S. He also anticipates doing a number of cross-border deals. "The ability to deliver a global finance product, I think, is highly valuable," he said.