Issa will oversee global structured credit and sustainable credit products at UBS. — Bloomberg
LONDON: The Credit Suisse executive who built an environmental, social and governance (ESG) debt-swap market that’s now attracting some of the world’s biggest banks has secured a senior role within UBS Group AG, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg.
Ramzi Issa, whose latest role was as global head of credit investor products structuring at Credit Suisse, will oversee global structured credit and sustainable credit products at UBS, following this year’s state-engineered takeover, the memo showed.
Issa’s appointment signals that Credit Suisse bankers can win top roles at the combined bank if they had expertise that UBS sees as useful. Thousands of Credit Suisse employees are otherwise expected to lose their jobs as UBS cuts businesses it doesn’t want.
A spokesperson for UBS declined to comment, and Issa didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Issa has played a central role in creating the modern debt-for-nature-swap market, which is designed to help governments refinance existing debt at more favourable terms in exchange for environmental pledges.
Though a similar concept had existed previously, Credit Suisse was the first bank to arrange deals that allowed institutional investors to participate in the new financing.
Under Issa, Credit Suisse retired about US$2.3bil of debt for governments spanning Belize to Ecuador, substituting that for about US$1.2bil of new financing and freeing up funds for environmental protection.
Since then, a number of global banks have voiced interest in entering the market for ESG debt swaps, including Barclays Plc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Standard Chartered Plc and Citigroup Inc.
Bank of America Corp completed its first swap in August, becoming the second bank besides Credit Suisse to have arranged such a deal.
Analysts at Barclays have estimated that the debt-for-nature-swap market has the potential to reach about US$800bil.
Bankers with an ESG focus in their job descriptions are less likely to be hit by cuts than many of their peers, analysts at Barclays said at the beginning of the year, citing their own research.
Standard Chartered has since hired a number of ESG bankers who used to be at Credit Suisse.
Issa said back in May that he was actively looking for new debt-swap deals, adding at the time that he was “very optimistic.” —Bloomberg
