Deutsche Bank's par loan desk has been making some personnel changes and is retooling part of its sales effort to focus on banks. The firm recently moved Michael Curry and Kevin Dooley, both v.p.s and desk analysts on the par loan desk, to the par loan sales team. The duo filled the open slots left when Kevin Latimer, a former director in loan sales, jumped to UBS Warburg in March and Dan Hagerman, a managing director in the firm's senior debt capital markets group, took a leave of absence about a month ago. Curry will focus on institutional clients and Dooley will focus exclusively on banks. Daniel Toscano, managing director and head of senior debt capital markets, said now that Deutsche Bank is focused on the needs of commercial banks, this will allow its relationships with these clients to be multifaceted. He said the change in strategy is part of the firm's overall commitment to the market and the asset class, of which banks are still an integral part.
Dooley's new assignment marks a change in focus for Deutsche Bank, which has increasingly become a trading shop focused on the institutional lender. The bank will direct more of its attention to banks and the much neglected pro rata loan, looking at new issue sales and the sourcing of par loans. "Banks are getting a lot more sensitive to risk management," said one dealer, emphasizing the activity of these traditional lenders in the loan market. Deutsche Bank's par desk placed second in Loan Market Week's Best Trading Desk survey in 2002. But it placed fifth this year, the first in which commercial banks were polled along with nonbank investors.
In addition, the dealer noted that pro rata loans are starting to get more attention, citing TCW's new collateralized loan obligation which will invest in pro rata paper. The $500 million TCW Pro Rata CLO is currently being shown to equity and debt investors (LMW, 6/23). "We [have] got to get [the pro rata] back to life," he added, pointing to the recent trading levels for Xerox [Corp.'s] new revolver as an example of the inefficiencies plaguing the pro rata market.
The spot could be considered a good fit for Dooley, who was formerly at Fuji Bank and Natexis Banques Populaires before joining Deutsche Bank in 2001. Curry was at Bankers Trust when Deutsche Bank acquired the firm in 1999. Nancy Del Genio is Deutsche Bank's managing director and head of loan sales and Clay DesJardine is a managing director and head of par loan trading.