Blaise Ganguin - Standard & Poor’s
Blaise Ganguin is Chief Credit Officer, Europe, with Standard & Poor’s, based in Paris, co-ordinating all analytical policy and quality assurance aspects of the rating process in Europe. He joined S&P in 1994 in Toronto as a corporate analyst and has since held various senior positions in Canada and Europe. He has a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Toronto, a Masters in history and political science from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and a graduate diploma in international affairs from the University of Ottawa.
Dagmar Kent Kershaw - Prudential M&G
Dagmar Kent Kershaw joined Prudential M&G in 1998 and was responsible for starting its CDO activities in 2000. The group has launched more than 20 CDO vehicles, across cash and synthetic markets, which seek to optimise relative value through superior credit selection and active portfolio management. Prudential M&G is unique in offering structured funds invested in bonds, loans, real estate loans, ABS and CDS on both a public and private basis. Kent Kershaw previously worked at NatWest and Scotiabank in European high-grade and high-yield credit. She holds an economics degree from York University.
Sam Theodore - DBRS
Sam Theodore joined DBRS in September 2005 as managing director for European Financial Institutions, and is responsible for spearheading the ratings and analytical franchise for European banks. He heads a staff of nine credit professionals in three offices – London, Paris, and Frankfurt. Prior to DBRS, he spent 17 years with Moody’s, the last 11 as the agency’s managing director for European bank ratings and global banking co-ordinator. He has a Master of International Banking and Finance from Columbia University in New York.
Ged Hawley - HBOS Treasury Services
Ged Hawley is an associate director in the capital management team responsible for issuing subordinated and hybrid debt capital instruments for HBOS. He works with the regulatory capital management team determining and executing the debt capital issuance programme, and providing advice on market dynamics, capital structures and pricing, and regulatory and rating agency developments. He joined from Egg Banking in 2006. A graduate of Leeds University, he is an associate member of the Association of Corporate Treasurers and previously qualified as an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Building Societies.
Michel Madelain - Moody’s Investors Service
Michel Madelain is group managing director, corporate and project Finance, based in London. In this role, he is responsible for investment-grade corporate finance and leveraged finance in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. As such, he is involved in strategic planning, product and business development, resourcing and quality monitoring of Moody’s corporate and project finance rating activities in the region. Before joining Moody’s, he was a partner of Ernst & Young’s auditing practice.
Richard Hunter - Fitch Ratings
Richard Hunter is the regional credit officer for EMEAA. Based in London, he heads the credit policy team responsible for the credit oversight of rating activities throughout corporate, structured and public finance. Hunter joined Fitch’s London office in 1996, working on a variety of diversified industrial sectors and in project finance and future flow export finance transactions, before heading the European energy team. From 2002 until 2005, he managed the agency’s global power practice in New York. A graduate of Lincoln College, Oxford, Hunter is a Prokurist of Fitch Deutschland and a member of Fitch’s Credit Policy Board.
Ernst Liehr - Societe Generale
Based in London, Ernst Liehr joined Société Générale in August 2002 to strengthen its rating advisory group’s presence internationally. Prior to joining SG CIB, he worked for three years at Merrill Lynch in London, in charge of the media, pharmaceutical, chemical and public sectors, advising such corporates as Yell, Continental and Kaufman & Broad. He also successfully led defence/upgrade missions for VNU, the Republic of South Africa and the City of Moscow. Between 1997 and 1999, he worked at Moody’s, rating financial institutions and sub-sovereigns.
Ross Aucutt - Barclays Treasury
Ross Aucutt is head of capital issuance and securitisation within Barclays Treasury, rising to that position in December 2004. He joined the company in1999. He is responsible for capital issuance and securitisation for Barclays Group, which includes the issuance of preference shares and other capital instruments, as well as the securitisations of group assets, such as the Gracechurch programmes. He holds a Masters in Finance from the London Business School.
Philip Wright - Associate Editor, IFR
William Thornhill - Assistant Editor, IFR
Click here for Part one of the Roundtable.
