John Keane, director on Fitch Ratings' corporate securitization team in London, has left for Barclays Capital, where he will be a director in whole business research. Keane's departure makes a 100% turnover rate for Fitch's whole business and commercial ABS team in recent months, as all seven members of the team have quit in recent months for different reasons.
Fitch has made four hires in the past few months to rebuild the team, with that of Joanne Wong, v.p. in structured asset finance at DVB Bank in Rotterdam, being the most recent. She joins Fitch as a dirctor. Other recent hires include Paul Crawford from Bank of Montreal and James Martin from Anglian Water, both as associate directors. Kale Brown, previously at Northern Rock, started recently as an analyst. Philip Walsh, senior director and head of the recently combined corporate and infrastructure group, said it is looking to hire one or two more professionals.
As for Keane, he starts at Barclays next month and will report to Laura Winchester, co-head of European credit research. Keane said he replaces Markus Niemeier, who left Barclays for Credit Suisse First Boston last summer. Some of the other recently departed Fitch professionals include Sarah Wall, who went to Prudential M&G, and Michael Cox, who joined Royal Bank of Scotland (BW, 11/1).