Morgan Stanley, preparing for a resurgence in securitized debt sales, has hired former Merrill Lynch & Co. executive David Moffitt to lead the effort within the firm's capital markets division.
Moffitt starts Dec. 1 in New York as head of global credit solutions and will report to Raj Dhanda and John Hyman, co-heads of global capital markets.
Morgan Stanley is hiring as many as 400 sales and trading employees to boost revenue from the business. While debt and equity underwriting have recovered this year after slumping in 2008, Dhanda said he expects the securitization business to rebound next year.
"Within our capital markets business this is one of the big growth areas," Dhanda said in an interview. "Nobody expects underwriting to double, but securitization or structured solutions business can double, or triple."
Moffitt is joining Morgan Stanley after consulting for about a year at MatlinPatterson Global Advisers LLC, a buyout firm led by the former Credit Suisse Group AG distressed debt specialist Mark Patterson. Moffitt previously oversaw structured product sales in the fixed-income division of Merrill Lynch, which was sold to Bank of America Corp. last year after suffering losses on structured debt investments.
