First Dominion Building Staff

First Dominion Capital has added three leveraged finance pros to its team.

The New York-based merchant bank said this week that David Lerner joined its asset management division as a vice president and Jae Kim and E.G. Morse were hired as associates in its merchant banking group.

All three report to John Popp, a senior managing director.

Mr. Lerner was a vice president in Mitsubishi Trust's leveraged finance group. Mr. Kim was a senior analyst in media mergers and acquisitions at Toronto-Dominion Securities Inc. Mr. Morse was an associate in investment banking at Schroder & Co.

First Dominion buys the B, C, and D tranches of syndicated bank debt, participates in bridge loans, buys high-yield bonds, and is becoming increasingly active on the merchant banking scene.

The new hires bring First Dominion's staff to 10 professionals. Mr. Popp said he plans to have 20 in 12 months.

Mr. Popp said the firm plans to hire "a mix of people in leveraged finance" who also understand senior debt as well as mezzanine and private equity investing.

On the asset management side the firm is looking for people with a focus on the institutional bank debt market.

Late last year Mr. Popp and four other executives-John Sabre, Andrew Marshak, Michael Monteleone, and Alex Bolen-defected to First Dominion from Indosuez Capital. Indosuez is the U.S. merchant banking arm of Paris-based Credit Agricole Indosuez.

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