Kwu Scott, formerly of J.P. Morgan, has joined ABN Amro's investment-grade syndication team and will begin work today. The bank also brought on Susan Greenwood from Deutsche Bank and Alexander Byers from Bank of America at the beginning of August to join the bank's distribution team. In fact, nine of the 14 bankers on ABN's loan desk are newcomers as the bank bulks up on bodies in an effort to increase its presence in the loan market by building a solid origination, distribution and trading effort.
According to John Finan, managing director of U.S. loan syndication global financial markets, ABN is taking advantage of the consolidation on the lender side of the industry to present a renewed effort in the syndicated loan market. "This is really a unique time to show up with a renewed product," he said. While it is difficult to quantify the bank's push, he noted that one goal was to see ABN's eighth place ranking in the league tables rise by taking on larger roles in syndications.
ABN also is beefing up its trading and distribution efforts and brought in Catherine Yelverton from BNP Paribas to establish the secondary bank loan effort in October 2001. The bank's trading operations got under way last April, and Yelverton said it is focused on performing loans that are a mix of investment-grade and leveraged loans consistent with the bank's origination efforts.