Maxim Group, a New York broker-dealer with a growing structured products business, is also shopping its debut collateralized debt obligation, according to industry professionals. They said its asset management arm, known as Maxim Advisory, is ramping up collateral and seeking investors for a $750 million structured vehicle, dubbed Jupiter, that will be backed by a pool of high-quality asset-backed securities. Merrill Lynch is underwriting the transaction.
Wing Chau, managing director and head of the CDO manager group at Maxim in New York, and Chris Ricciardi, managing director and head of the structured credit products group at Merrill, could not be reached by press time.
Overall, Maxim has nearly 400 staffers working on the broker-dealer and asset management sides. A firm official said the sell-side is a fixed-income operation rooted in the structured products business in assets such as distressed asset-backeds and collateralized debt obligations.
Maxim trades mostly in the subordinate part of the capital structure, he said.