Merrill Lynch has hired Tim Skeet as a covered bond product specialist reporting to Amir Hoveyda, European head of debt capital markets. He joins Merrill from ABN Amro where he was head of financial institutions origination for Germany and France. He joined the Dutch bank at the start of 2003, before that he held a senior FIG relationship banker role at Barclays Capital. Skeet is a veteran of the debt capital markets and one of the best-known faces in the covered bond sector. He started in the business some 25 years ago at Samuel Montagu.