Sector developments and company hires

Corporate, PF businesses bolstered
KBRA has enhanced its corporate and project finance businesses by forming new sector teams to focus on the intersection of infrastructure, energy, renewables and middle market lending. The aim of the sector-focused teams is to meet demand for KBRA’s thought leadership across these segments.

Andrew Giudici, senior md and global head of corporate, project and infrastructure finance at KBRA, will oversee this effort. Three new sector leads have also been appointed to run the teams.

Marisol Gonzalez de Cosio will lead the infrastructure team, focusing on companies and projects financing social infrastructure and other non-energy related projects. She is an md at KBRA, having joined the rating agency in May 2016. Before that, she worked at S&P, including in its emerging markets structured finance group.

Shane Olaleye will lead the power, energy and renewable finance team, concentrating on companies and projects operating in the dynamic power and energy sectors. He is a senior director at KBRA, having joined the agency in June 2016 from Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

Finally, Steve Schutzman will lead the corporate credit evaluation team to focus on the growing use of KBRA's credit assessments in funds, structured credit and ABS transactions. He is an md and joined the agency in December 2016 from RBC.

EMEA
Barclays has hired Jekaterina Muhametova as a CLO structurer, based in London. She was previously a CLO credit analyst at S&P, which she joined in August 2015.

Gordon Kerr is set to join KBRA later this month as md and head of European structured finance research. Kerr brings more than 20 years of experience to the role, most recently serving as head of structured finance research for Europe at DBRS, which he joined in April 2013. Before that, he was head of European securitised products research at Citi.

North America
Greystone has strengthened its CMBS lending and special servicing groups. Brett Gaffan has joined the former as a senior md, based in New York. In this role, he will focus on CMBS loan production and report to Rob Russell, president of special servicing.

With over 20 years of CMBS sector experience, Gaffan joins Greystone from Societe Generale, where he served as a director responsible for CMBS, mezzanine and floating-rate balance sheet CRE loans. Prior to that, he held various CMBS loan origination roles at Barclays, CIBC and Morgan Stanley.

Meanwhile, David King has joined Greystone’s special servicing group as an md, reporting to Russell. King is tasked with driving strategic growth of the division, which currently manages a portfolio of assets totaling US$21.1bn.

He joins Greystone from CWCapital Asset Management, where he served as svp and head of CRE credit and underwriting, overseeing the acquisition of servicing rights on over US$125bn of new issue CMBS and agency subordinate bond offerings. Prior to CWCapital, King was an acquisitions associate at Stoltz Real Estate Partners.

Wilmington Trust has added three senior relationship managers within its CLO and loan administration division – Henry Brigham, Willis Hwang and David Knecht. Brigham and Hwang will be responsible for managing client relationships, including onboarding and ongoing servicing, while Knecht will be responsible for managing client relationships and overseeing the loan processing team focused on quality control and data integrity.

The trio joins from Deutsche Bank's corporate trust unit and collectively brings over 43 years of experience in CLO trustee and loan administration services. All three will be based in Wilmington Trust's Costa Mesa, California office and report to CLO and loan administration head Richard Britt.