MOVES-Barclays hires Khouri in credit trading

LONDON, June 28 (IFR) - Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) has hired Michael Khouri as a managing director in its London-based credit trading team.

Khouri joins after 10 years at Morgan Stanley (Xetra: 885836 - news) where he worked as a senior distressed debt trader. Prior to that, he was at Lehman Brothers and Jefferies.

Khouri is expected to take up his role at Barclays in late September and will report to Dan Friedman who heads European high yield and distressed credit trading at the bank.

The latest hire signals growing confidence in the credit business and opportunities for growth, according to a person familiar with the appointment.

As part of a streamlining of investment banking operations that got underway two years ago, Barclays moved interest rates, foreign exchange and commodities products into a new macro unit after those businesses were battered by a structural and cyclical decline. That has enabled the bank to reweight activities towards origination businesses like banking and credit, where primary and secondary operations offer synergies.

At the same time, the bank embarked on a three-year plan to axe 7,000 jobs and moved around £90bn of risk weighted assets into a non-core unit. Since taking the decision to shrink the investment bank two years ago, Barclays has halved RWAs. (Reporting by Helen Bartholomew; Editing by Steve Slater)