Claudio Phillips is rejoining the loan market as a senior managing director and head of the distressed bank debt trading group at The Seaport Group. Stephen Smith, co-founder of Seaport, noted that Phillips will allow the firm to expand is capabilities in the international markets. “Bringing Claudio on will give us more of a global focus in bank debt,” he said. Phillips could not be reached immediately by press time.
Phillips left the loan market in the summer of 2002, leaving behind his position as a managing director and head par loan trader at Salomon Smith Barney. He fills a vacancy left open at Seaport when Amy Siskind departed from the firm last month. Siskind was a managing director of bank debt trading at Seaport. Meanwhile, Siskind has emerged as a managing director in charge of running the bank debt department at Imperial Capital. Siskind said Imperial Capital—with more than 100 employees—has a bigger platform than Seaport. She explained that the firm participates in the stressed and distressed markets and has capital to facilitate trading.
Siskind also noted that she will be working to expand the firm’s corporate finance capabilities through new issue in the middle-market and second-lien arenas. She will be looking to hire two more employees on the bank sales side to work with her and Denis Cullen, a senior v.p. Siskind previously worked on the distressed bank debt groups of Morgan Stanley, Wasserstein Perella Securities and Amroc Investments.