Merrill Lynch is expecting the market for cash collateralized debt obligations in Europe to rebound next year and is taking steps to equip itself for increased origination levels. Vincent Dahinden, managing director and head of European structured credit products in London, predicts it will be more attractive to structure CDOs of loan and asset-backed collateral next year as arbitrage opportunities improve. To meet this demand, he says Merrill has hired two professionals from Credit Suisse First Boston with a background in structuring cash repackagings. Paul Vos plans to start work at Merrill later this month as an associate in the structured credit group, where he will join Andrew Bellis, a v.p. who started earlier at Merrill this month. "We are strengthening an area where we think there will be good opportunities next year," explains Dahinden. Vos could not be reached and Bellis declined to comment. As in the U.S., synthetic securitizations represent the lion's share of the new issue market in Europe.
Rebecca O'Neill, a CSFB spokeswoman in London, confirmed the duo has left CSFB. While there, she says they reported to Scott Ulm, global co-head of the CDO group.