Three professionals have left the asset-backed group at Fitch Ratings in London. Patrick Kearns, senior director, and Akinade Dada and Erwan Fournis, both associate directors, recently departed the ABS team headed by Olivier Delfour.
Kearns has joined the structured investment vehicle management group at Bank of Montreal in London as head of credit. BofM's SIV management group is the investment manager for Links Finance and Parkland Finance, two SIVs which have a combined $14.6 billion in a range of asset-backed securities. Kearns fills a position that has been open since Richard Gambel left BoM a year ago to head the collateralized debt obligation group at Fitch in London. Kearns reports to Paul Secchia, head of credit investments.
HypoVereinsbank in London has snapped up Dada, who will start at HVB in a new slot on the securitization team headed by Mark Lewis in September. Dada will focus on Italian and Southern European securitization, bolstering the effort currently led by Alessandro Mele. At Fitch Dada reported directly to Heather Dyke, head of consumer ABS.
Meanwhile Fournis has landed at CIT Group, the consumer and commercial finance company in London, as a v.p. in project finance where he works closely with Duncan Caird and David Peterson, both senior directors. Fournis' hire represents an expansion of the project finance team headed byHan Derksen. Fournis was part of Polly Kolotas' commercial ABS team while at Fitch.
Calls to team heads at Fitch were referred to Julian Dennison, spokesman. He declined comment