Mark-it Partners boosts headcount

Mark-it Partners, the UK provider of daily pricing information for cash credit and credit derivatives, has hired Stefan Trifonov from Raiffeisenbank in Bulgaria as an analyst, as part of an on-going drive to boost its headcount.

Trifonov will monitor the credit curves produced by Mark-it on a daily basis and maintain the integrity of Mark-it’s database of credit prices. He previously spent six years with Austria’s Raiffeisen Zentralbank conducting credit analysis of the bank’s loan portfolio.

At Mark-it Partners, Trifonov will manage the processes associated with the provision of daily cash and derivatives data, as well as being involved in the design and functional specifications of future enhancements to the Mark-it system.

Mark-it Partners hired Nicola van Schroeter from Morgan Stanley to drive its European sales and marketing function less than a month ago.

Mark-it Partners now employs 16 staff and two consultants. It plans to hire an additional 12 to 14 staff during the next 15 months, chief operating officer Kevin Gould told RiskNews. A number of these hires would be conditional on Mark-it Partners taking over the credit derivatives reference entity database, called Project Red – set up by leading dealers Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan last year.

While Mark-it Partners data is typically used at treasury and finance groups, the company has received interest from two banks interested in using the data for loan portfolio optimising techniques.