Barclays Capital, the investment-banking division of Barclays PLC, has hired Fritz Engelhard as a European covered bond strategist.
Mr. Engelhard, 40, is based in Frankfurt and reports to John Maskell, the head of European rates strategy. Nathaly Sidiropoulos, a spokeswoman for Barclays, the United Kingdom's third-largest banking company, said Wednesday that Mr. Engelhard's position is a new one.
Covered bonds are securities backed by mortgage and public loans that remain on a bank's balance sheet. When selling traditional mortgage-backed debt, banks sell the loans to a special-purpose company, which then issues the bonds.
Sales of new covered bonds in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Italy may grow this year, in part because of "the keenness of many banks to diversify more strongly their funding instruments," Mr. Engelhard said in an interview.
Mortgage banks may lead the sales in Germany, because they are now allowed to refinance mortgage loans with covered bonds, he said. The U.K. growth will depend on whether the Financial Services Authority passes rules that support sales, he said.
Last year Italy passed a law allowing the state-controlled lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti to sell covered bonds.
Before joining Barclays, Mr. Engelhard spent seven years at HypoVereinsbank AG, where he most recently was a senior analyst for European structured credit and covered bonds, according to an e-mail from Barclays.
HypoVereinsbank was the No. 6 underwriter of European covered bonds last year, according to Bloomberg data. Barclays was No. 3.
