Barclays Capital has hired Gerard O'Connor, an analyst and collateralized debt obligation veteran, as a director for its new CDO department, according to Eileen Murphy, head of the firm's global CDO effort. O'Connor, who started last Monday, is in a new slot. He is acting as a structurer for all CDO products. Murphy says she is currently looking to staff four additional positions--two of which will be filled internally and two with external hires. All four spots will have a strong emphasis on equity distribution. O'Connor says he is "thrilled," to continue his long professional relationship with Murphy, as well as the opportunity to start a group from scratch at Barclays.
Though O'Connor worked briefly on the sellside with Murphy at Chase Securities, a firm they both left after the J.P. Morgan merger, he is more well known within the asset-backed community from his seven-year stint with Moody's Investors Service, where he worked from 1993-2000. Murphy notes that he was one of the first analysts to extensively cover the then nascent CDO marketplace.
To date, O'Connor is the only external hire, according to Murphy. Her other aide is Iftikhar Hyder, a director who had been hired internally as Hyder has been at Barclays since 2000. Hyder also put in time as a ratings analyst with Standard & Poor's, from 1995 to 2000.