Clay Saylor has joined Fitch Ratings as a director. He starts this week and will evaluate managers of collateralized debt obligations, according to Said Rafat, senior director and head of the CDO manager ratings team. The role is a new one, created to meet increasing demand for the rating agency's CDO manager evaluations, he says. So far, Fitch has rated roughly 10 asset managers, including Pacific Investment Management Co., on factors such as their expertise in selecting collateral and monitoring it. The group quantifies a manager's ability and the CDO ratings group offers credit enhancement discounts as a carrot for managers who score well, according to Rafat.
Saylor has been working as an industry consultant and recently was on the global credit products team at RBC Capital Markets. He also spent 12 years at Citigroup Global Markets in various fixed income structuring roles.