Merrill Lynch in London has hired two professionals from the rating agencies for its real estate finance group. David Beale, director focusing on commercial mortgage-backed securitization in the structured finance team at Standard and Poor's in London, recently started as a director and works on the structuring, execution and underwriting of real estate transactions. And John Bigley, director in commercial mortgage-backed securitization at Fitch Ratings in London, is due to start next month in a similar capacity. The team is led by Stephen Green, head of real estate finance. Green referred calls to Patrick Meyer, spokesman, who did not return calls by press time.
At S&P, Beale reported to Simon Collingridge, managing director in structured finance. At Fitch, Bigley reported to Rodney Pelletier, managing director in CMBS. Neither returned calls by press time, although Pelletier recently told BW that Fitch is hiring for its CMBS team (BW, 3/14).