Morgan Stanley has hired two leverage finance pros from Citigroup, the latest in a string of hires in an effort to bolster that team. Whitner Marshall and Kevin Sisson join Morgan Stanley as managing directors in the leveraged and acquisition finance group. The two follow Ashok Nayyar, co-head of leveraged and acquisition finance, who moved from Citi in February. Marshall and Sisson will be responsible for origination and structuring leveraged finance transactions for corporate issuers across industries. The pair is on gardening leave and will start May 30. They will report to Nayyar and his co-head, Michael Hart. Marshall, Sisson and Hart could not be reached for comment.
The announcement follows the hires the firm made two weeks ago, when it brought in Bruce Buchanan, executive director, to serve as the global head of restructuring finance and strategic lending origination, and Dan Gioia, executive director, responsible for structured and syndicated leveraged and asset-based lending transactions. Both joined from GE Capital. At the same time the firm also hired Robert Louzan from TD Securities. Louzan is a v.p. managing the proprietary portfolio of investments and evaluating potential financing opportunities. The trio will report to Jason Colodone, global head of strategic finance group (CIN, 3/13).
At Citigroup, Marshall was a managing director in the leverage finance business covering a variety of industries including, paper, packaging, metals, mining and transportation. Sisson was also a managing director covering media and technology companies.
Citigroup will not be replacing Marshall or Sisson. The two co-heads of global loans and leveraged finance, Michael Mauer and Rich Zogheb, both managing directors, will assume oversight of the U.S. markets. A spokeswoman at Citigroup declined to comment.