BNP Paribas in London is ramping up its focus on the covered bond market and has hired Heiko Langer, director in covered bond research at ABN AMRO in Frankfurt. He joins BNP Paribas as a senior analyst for covered bonds and his hire expands the dedicated covered bond team to three, with Benjamin Moulle heading up trading and Derry Hubbard leading the covered bond effort as product manager. They both joined BNP Paribas within the last year. Langer reports to Rick Deutsch, head of European credit research.
"With the increase in transparency in covered bond trading and issuance over the past two years, BNP Paribas sees a new space for itself in the larger European covered bond market and aims to be a top-five player," said Hubbard. He noted the bank is ranked sixth in the Thomson Financial league tables for all covered bonds for the first half of this year. BNP Paribas is already active in its home French market and year-to-date is also the third-largest underwriter of Spanish covered bonds by number of deals, having arranged eight deals. The bank is looking to expand into other jurisdictions and Hubbard observed BNP arranged the first deal under the new Austrian covered bond legislation passed in early June, for Bank für Arbeit und Wirtschaft.
At ABN AMRO, Langer covered European liquid covered bonds and Euro agencies and reported to Christoph Anhamm, head of covered bond research. Anhamm said the bank does not plan to hire a replacement for Langer.