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Morgan Stanley's head of European leveraged credit trading has resigned. Robert Lepone, who oversaw various teams, including high yield bonds, leveraged loans, credit default swaps and distressed debt, left Morgan Stanley's London office for personal reasons, a spokesman said. His replacement will be announced in the coming weeks, the spokesman said, declining to comment further. Lepone's departure comes less than two weeks after Joseph McManus, a vice president with Morgan Stanley's investment-grade credit products group, left to join CastleOak Securities' fixed-income sales team.

Whispers: February 23, 2009

Morgan Stanley's head of European leveraged credit trading has resigned. Robert Lepone, who oversaw various teams, including high yield bonds, leveraged loans, credit default swaps and distressed debt, left Morgan Stanley's London office for personal reasons, a spokesman said. His replacement will be announced in the coming weeks, the spokesman said, declining to comment further. Lepone's departure comes less than two weeks after Joseph McManus, a vice president with Morgan Stanley's investment-grade credit products group, left to join CastleOak Securities' fixed-income sales team.

Whispers: February 16, 2009

Chapman and Cutler hired Kenneth Marin to be part of its recently opened New York City office. Marin is a partner in the firm's asset securitization practice. Marin has represented issuers, underwriters, investors and credit enhancers in securitization deals involving a diverse array of performing and distressed assets. He also has a substantial derivatives practice and helped pioneer the use of covered bonds in the U.S. Marin was previously at McKee Nelson, where he was a partner in the corporate finance department and co-head of the firm's covered bonds team.

Whispers: February 2, 2009

Bank of America has reportedly let go Charles Bingham, head of loan syndications for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as it works towards its goal of reducing its head count by 35,000 following its acquisition of Merrill Lynch. Bingham was one of roughly 1,900 BofA and Merrill employees cut in London. Their departures comes just after BofA cut two top Merrill guys from its Asia-Pacific debt capital markets team: Ajay Sawhney, head of Asian leveraged finance, and Jon Pratt, head of Asia debt capital markets outside Japan and Australia. Other top Merrill people to have left recently include the firm's former head of U.S. leveraged finance Greg Margolies, who joined Ares Management. He is now a senior partner and head of the capital markets group for the Los Angeles-based alternative asset manager.

Whispers: January 26, 2009

UBS launched a new series of senior management job cuts within its securities unit as it gets out of real estate, securitization and 'exotic' structured products, according to an internal memo. The memo, dated Jan. 21, outlined that bankers Todd Morakis, Sascha Prinz, David Sacco and Chris Ryan will depart UBS, which is also getting out of the municipal bonds and proprietary trading, as well as all commodities businesses except for precious metals. UBS will consolidate its existing financial products under a new macro, credit and workout group. Carsten Kengeter and Jeff Mayer, global co-heads of fixed income, currencies and commodities, will oversee the credit business, while emerging markets will be headed by Ritesh Dutta and subsumed into the macro group. UBS said that Roberto Isolani and Fabian Shey will co-head the firm's global sales effort organized under client services, whereas its quant analysis and research group will be managed by Steve Dugdale.

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