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A comatose convertible bond market hasn't stopped the inexorable rise of Martin Fisch, Deutsche Bank's head of equity-linked origination, who in February this year was put in charge of the bank's new ECM structured solutions marketing team. Deutsche is recognised as a market leader in the European equity-linked market, and Fisch, who was made head of equity-linked origination in 2003 at the age of 28, is seen as one of the market's best practitioners.

Brad Craighead joined Countrywide from JP Morgan in March 2005, as head of its London securities subsidiary. His move to the US mortgage lender and servicer came after more than 20 years in securitisation, mostly on the sell-side. Craighead began his career in ABS doing holiday work at First Boston in between terms at St Lawrence University. He joined officially in 1986 as an analyst in the bank's mortgage products group, and since then has never strayed far from the thick of the action, rising to run the trading and syndicate desks at First Boston and later JP Morgan, in New York and London. In his long career he has trained some of Europe's best known syndicate heads, including Adrian Carr, who now runs the financial institutions desk at CSFB.

Gael de Boissard's decision to join Credit Suisse First Boston was doubtless made less difficult by the clash of cultures that ensued from Chase Manhattan's merger with JP Morgan in late 2000. De Boissard had been running JP Morgan's European fixed income division for four years, in which time he successfully integrated its European sales groups for FX, bonds, interest rate and credit derivatives after the merger.

Bank of America promoted Rommie Bhutani to head of leveraged capital markets and financial sponsors for Europe in October 2004. He started at the bank in May 2004 as co-head of financial sponsor coverage, but after five months, Bank of America decided not to name a co-head but give Bhutani responsibility for the capital markets function as well as financial sponsor coverage. He is responsible for maintaining relationships with private equity houses as well as high yield, bank debt and mezzanine financing.

BNP Paribas hired Youssef Khlat in September 2004 to run its European high yield capital markets business. It was an appointment that caused a stir in the European market — Khlat is one of the most experienced high yield and leveraged finance bankers, having cut his teeth in the business at Bankers Trust.

Ask anyone involved with European securitisation which investment bank has had the biggest impact on the market in the last five years, and whatever their affiliations, they would have to say Citigroup. The bank's remarkable success in both league tables and innovation has many roots, but the stability of its structured finance team must be an important one.

AUSTRIA

The news that Robert Diamond, the chief executive of the outstandingly successful Barclays Capital, is to join the main board of Barclays Bank should not come as a total surprise.

The threat of the first default in the European commercial mortgage backed securities (CMBS) market loomed larger this week as Standard & Poor's said of Morgan Stanley's beleaguered HOTELoC securitisation: "ultimate repayment of the lower tranches of rated debt remains highly uncertain."

Bear Stearns has increased its involvement in the UK non-conforming mortgage business by acquiring a minority stake in the Southend-based mortgage broker Essex & Capital.

Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo launched its fourth securitisation of residential mortgages this week, raising almost twice as much cash as it did with its previous issue in January 2004.

The spread differential between prime and non-conforming RMBS has continued to shrink over the last seven days to just 4bp.