UniCredit snaps up TJ Lim and NewSmith credit advisory

UniCredit has bought London-based credit advisory NewSmith Financial Products (NSFP) and appointed chief executive TJ Lim as its new co-head of markets.

Under the deal, the bank will also become an investor in NewSmith funds and take a 5% stake in NewSmith Capital Partners, NSFP’s parent firm.

Lim and a team of 10 will join the European bank’s markets and investment banking division in London. As co-head of markets, Lim will have responsibility for global credit, fixed income, currencies and sales, and sit on the division’s executive committee.

The move sees Lim return to investment banking after a hiatus at NewSmith. He was previously head of debt capital markets at Merrill Lynch International, where he helped develop the non-US dollar-swap business and played a key role in forming the first capitalised swap vehicle, Merrill Lynch Derivative Products. Having also held senior management positions at Dresdner Kleinwort and UBS, Lim began his career among swap market pioneers at JP Morgan.

He will work alongside newly appointed co-head of markets Mike Hammond, who will take responsibility for equities, structured equity and commodities products, corporate treasury sales and capital markets.

The pair will report to Edoardo Spezzotti, UniCredit’s head of markets and investment banking.

NSFP was thought to be launching a special situations fund in the third quarter. It would invest in credit products such as collateralised debt and loan obligations in the secondary market, taking advantage of dislocations stemming from US subprime mortgage losses. It is now believed this launch may take place under the UniCredit banner.

The bank also hired Sam Phillips this week as London-based global head of credit financial engineering, within UniCredit’s credit structured products group. He was formerly head of the credit correlation quant team at Citi, also based in London.