Barclays Capital is adding to its high-yield business by landing John Kempf as a director and senior high-yield analyst for the U.S. lodging, leisure and gaming sectors. Based in New York, Kempf will report to Mark Pibl, managing director and head of U.S. credit research.
"John has extensive experience in the gaming, lodging and leisure space," Pibl said of the hire. "[It was] a combination of his industry expertise, his high-yield expertise and his recent experience focusing on cross sector, cross product, cross securities, that really lends himself well to Barclays." The lodging and hospitality sectors are areas in which Barclays is focused. Pibl said Kempf's previous experience at Harbert Management Corp., where he was involved in multiple security strategies such as credit defaults swaps as well as bonds and crossover credits, made him an attractive candidate.
At Harbert, Kempf was director of credit research, where he worked on identifying and implementing cross-product and cross-industry sector trading strategies. Before joining Harbert he worked at Goldman Sachs for nine years as a v.p. in the high-yield research group. He received the No. 2 ranking in the Institutional Investor All-American Fixed Income Research survey from 2001-03 for his coverage of the gaming and lodging sectors.