BMO hires Goldman executive Leasure as debt group managing director

New York, July 24 - BMO Nesbitt Burns said Wednesday that it has hired Dirk Leasure as a managing director in its expanding U.S. Debt Solutions Group.

Leasure comes to BMO from Goldman Sachs & Co., where he was an executive director focusing on high yield, leveraged finance and sponsor coverage.

In his new position, Leasure - who will report to the head of the debt group, executive managing director Jim Moglia, - "will add to the group's senior expertise in high yield finance and restructuring, as well as expand the firm's financial sponsor coverage activity," BMO said in a statement.

Leasure, who graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in commerce, has nearly 17 years of experience in high yield, restructuring and financial sponsor coverage. Before joining Goldman Sachs in 1994, he worked at Bear Stearns and Kidder Peabody, where he specialized in restructurings and high yield finance.

His hiring is the latest in a string of recent high-level hires for BMO's New York-based U.S. Debt Solutions Group, which is comprised of departments covering U.S. high yield, investment grade, restructuring, private placements, sponsor coverage and loan structuring. Expansion of this group over the last year has previously included the addition of senior Wall Street professionals Jed Duncan, Jim Goll and Tim Meyer, and has produced what the company terms a "significant" increase in high yield and investment grade debt transactions. Most recently, the group was a book runner for high yield transactions involving Vintage Petroleum and Compton Petroleum.

Moglia noted that BMO Nesbitt Burns' expansion of its U.S. debt products is driven by the increased desire of clients to finance middle market acquisitions, as well as finance distressed assets.

"Financing the acquisition of distressed assets is still an under-serviced opportunity," he noted, adding that the expansion is also timely, given the retrenchment of competitors in the investment banking marketplace.

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