Fitch Ratings, continuing to focus on growing its high-yield group, has hired Lisa Matalon, senior director, and Amol Josh, director, within its U.S. corporate high-yield sector. The pair will report to Eric Tutterow, senior director and head of Fitch's high-yield group within the corporate team.
"A lot of what these new hires brought is expertise in the corporate organizational structure, covenant aspects; structural related items that you really need to focus on," John Olert, managing director and co-head of North America corporate finance said. "They will help members of the existing team and are clearly capable of looking at new transactions as well."
The agency launched an initiative in September to build out its existing high-yield platform, and Olert said these hirings round out that initial plan. Currently, Fitch has 85 analysts across corporate finance, and with 12 or 13 different sector teams', analysts look broadly across industries. He said Fitch may add additional members to its industry teams as it makes further inroads and are prepared to handle additional volume, but has set no timeframe.
Most recently, Matalon was a v.p. and senior credit officer in the corporate finance group at Moody's Investors Service. There she was responsible for managing ratings for issuers in the automotive supplier industry. Amol joins from Fitch's sister company, Fitch Risk, where he was a v.p. in the capital management group.