Totem recruits Johns to head credit derivatives business

Totem Market Valuations, a London-based data valuations provider, has hired Euan Johns to expand its credit derivatives pricing service, which it established around a year ago.

Totem provides securities houses and banks with a source of consensus prices for a wide range of over-the-counter instruments. Johns joins Totem from Deutsche Bank, where he spent three years in credit derivatives product control, looking at first-to-default baskets, portfolio swaps, synthetic collateralised debt obligations and investment-grade credit default swaps.

Johns started his career at Merrill Lynch in London, before moving to HSBC in Sydney, where he gained experience in treasury credit analysis and market risk management.

He also spent three years at Westpac Banking Corporation - one of the first banks to trade credit derivatives in Australia - where he established their product control function for credit derivatives.

Tim Barker, chief executive of Totem, said the appointment was part of the company's continued growth in the derivatives markets. "We may look to expand into more exotic areas, like weather derivatives, at some point in the future," he added. "But this will only happen when we think there is a good source of clean data."