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| Bryant Edwards Chairman, European High Yield Association |
The European High Yield Association is celebrating its fifth birthday this year under new management. Bryant Edwards, an American corporate partner in the London office of US law firm Latham & Watkins, became its new chairman last November. It has also appointed four new directors: James Amine, co-head of global leveraged finance at CSFB; Eric Cap, managing director of high-yield capital markets at JPMorgan in London; Tim Flynn, London co-head of leveraged finance at Goldman Sachs; and PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Michael Berkowitz.
?We wanted to re-energize the EHYA and make it more relevant to the market,? says Edwards. ?It had faded a bit but the high-yield market has been so strong in the last two years that there's been renewed interest in the product.?
A need for simpler structures
As an American in Europe, Edwards has clear views on what the market needs. ?We ought to simplify European leveraged finance structures,? he says. ?Right now we have a complicated mixture of structural and contractual subordination and it's just too hard for investors to understand.