UK investment bank Barclays Capital has appointed Ramon Walsh as a director of its leveraged finance sponsor origination team, according to a statement.
Walsh will work with buyout clients providing financing for deals. He joins from US bank Morgan Stanley, where he was also a director in the leveraged finance team for two years.
He previously worked at Swiss bank UBS for five years in the mergers and acquisitions and leveraged finance teams. He is a qualified chartered accountant having begun his career at Ernst and Young.
The appointment comes as banks worldwide struggle to syndicate the existing backlog of leveraged loans. PEO was told two weeks ago it may take up to a year to syndicate the remaining £8.25 billion (€11.83 billion, $16.84 billion) of the chemist Alliance Boots’ debt.
Barclays Capital's president Bob Diamond said in September he expects leveraged loan issuance levels to be back to normal in 2008.
Yet the fresh hire comes in contrast to fears voiced by sources in the debt markets, that leveraged loan teams could see substantial redundancies in response to the global lack of liquidity making it difficult to implement more deals.