Leveto to join Deutsche Bank’s TIE business

Greg Leveto, who left Goldman Sachs last month after an eight-year tenure, will next month tie his professional fate to Deutsche Bank 's (DB) Transportation, Infrastructure and Energy (TIE) business as the head of a Special Situations Group, according to TIE Finance head Armin Rothauser.

Leveto, formerly vice president of the hard asset trading group at Goldman Sachs, will report to Rothauser in New York, and two weeks after his arrival will be joined by an as-yet unnamed team member.

DB has often acted as a senior secured lender, Rothauser explained, adding that with this hire the bank has expanded its ability to offer clients “more complicated and higher-leveraged financing as needed”, particularly bridge, mezzanine and acquisition financing.

While Rothauser said there were other candidates in the running to take the position, Leveto's client management and risk-taking abilities shown during his tenure at Goldman Sachs led DB to believe Leveto was best suited for the platform.

With Leveto at the helm, the Special Situations Group will work to augment deals across all product suites though there will be a special emphasis on the solar and wind sectors, and he will personally be focused on deals occurring in the Americas.

Leveto will focus on fundamental credit analysis, capital structure analysis, trading, portfolio risk management strategies and special situations lending.

Despite the individual and collective jurisdictional risks and other issues within the developing markets in the region, Rothauser said DB is receiving an increasing number of inquiries from South and Central America and, with that in mind, those areas would be receiving an incrementally increasing amount of the group's attention where appropriate.

With a continued push in the market toward use of yieldcos, and the complicated filings that accompany their use, Rothauser said that Leveto's Special Situations Group would help DB to delve deeper into that market.

“Our capabilities to be able to bridge that would be very valuable,” Rothauser said.