Sector developments and company hires

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has launched its ICE ESG Geo-Analyzer tool to better help analyse portfolios of both commercial and residential properties, asset-backed securities, and corporate operations that are tied to certain locations. The Geo-Analyzer tool uses ICE’s geospatial data modelling to create climate risk and social impact data and analytics for properties and communities across the US. It seeks to address the rising physical climate risks that face property owners, investors and corporations, and will be able to offer metrics on an array of hazards including wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, and floods. The new on-demand platform will offer property-level climate risk and demographic data across the contiguous US, which the firm hopes to expand to further geographies globally in 2023.

In other news…

EMEA

IQ-EQ has appointed Stefan Rolf to the newly established position of global head of securitisation and private debt as the firm continues the expansion of its services into the securitisation and private debt industry. Rolf brings more than 25 years of expertise to the firm in financial services and banking from several different jurisdictions, including Germany, the Netherlands, and Singapore. He joins the firm from ING Bank where he served as global head of balance sheet distribution, having also previously served as Volkswagen Financial Services’ global head of securitisation. In his new role, Rolf will work to drive the development of IG-EQ’s securitisation and private debt offering and will lead its global expansion in these areas, broadening the firm’s client base worldwide. Rolf will be based in the IQ-EQ Amsterdam office and will be a key member of its capital markets and corporates segment, led by Edward Stevenson.

North America

Eagle Point Credit has recruited a new senior member to its investment team, Karan Chabba, who will serve as head of ABS, MBS, SRT and speciality finance. Chabba brings more than 25 years of financial services experience to the role, having previously served as partner and head of global RMBS, CLOs, speciality finance/SRT, and European ABS at KLS Diversified Investment Management. In his new role, Chabba will maintain responsibility for managing portfolios of credit investments across ABS, MBS, SRT, and European structured products. Further to this, Chabba will also work to source, diligence, and monitor bespoke lending opportunities.

MidOcean Partners has launched a new programme dedicated to the advancement of gender diversity in the asset management industry. The Women’s Awareness Initiative (WAI) will work to achieve its goal through holding workshops and programmes that help women in the industry hone their skills and build relationships within the field. WAI was set up by MidOcean md and ESG/compliance officer, Candice Richards, with founding members including Riverside Company, Avante Capital Partners, and Churchill Asset Management. The programme has been formally endorsed by the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA) who have already included WAI to its diversity, equity, and inclusion roadmap.

Evan Berman is set to join Ropes & Gray’s New York office as the firm works to expand its securitisation practice. Berman joins the firm as counsel and brings extensive securitisation finance experience to the role. The firm hopes this new addition to the team will help build out its whole business securitisation platform. Berman joins the firm from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison where he also served as counsel, and counselled several prominent franchisors, their private equity sponsors, and investment banks on an estimated US$10bn in whole business securitisations.

Societe Generale has named Fouad Farah head of fixed income, Americas. Based in New York, he will oversee the trading, sales and engineering teams, as well as continuing his current role as head of credit and structured financing Americas. Farah joined the bank in January 2008 as md, global head of special situations trading.

Warwick Capital Partners has appointed Leland Hart and Andrew Welty as partners, based in New York and Arizona respectively. Hart was formerly co-cio at Alcentra, having previously worked at Wheelhouse Investment Partners, BlackRock, R3 Capital, Lehman Brothers and Bank of America. Welty has been acting as a consultant to Warwick since 2011, alongside a finance and investor relations role at Per Astra. Before that, he worked at Polygon Investment Partners, Nomura and Deutsche Bank.