MUFG has hired a hedge-fund executive to run credit sales as the Japanese bank shakes up its US business

Kazuhiro Nogi/AFP/Getty Images

MUFG has been shaking up its US credit sales business.

• Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group has hired hedge-fund executive John Karabelas to run fixed-income sales in the Americas.
• Karabelas, a 25-year vet with long stints at Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas, will join as head of Institutional Investor Sales in the Americas in January.
• His hire is the latest in a string of senior management changes in the Japanese bank's US credit sales business.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group has hired a hedge-fund executive to run credit sales as it continues to shake up its fixed income business in the US.

John Karabelas, president of the credit hedge-fund Kildonan Castle Asset Management, will join MUFG in January as the head of Institutional Investor Sales in the Americas, a bank spokeswoman confirmed.

Karabelas is a 25-year industry vet who spent 15 years in credit sales at Deutsche Bank before leaving in 2010 to run North American credit sales at BNP Paribas. He left BNP for Kildonan in 2017.

He'll report to Bill Mansfield, CEO of MUFG Securities Americas, and Paul Lavelle, global head of Institutional Investor Sales at MUFG.

"MUFG is committed to building the momentum we've already established across our institutional investor client base, and John's depth and breadth of experience will be a natural fit into that plan," Mansfield said in a statement to Business Insider.

MUFG is a giant in Japan, but its investment bank is a smaller player in the US market - it doesn't crack the top-10 on the industry league tables.

But the bank has been quietly overhauling its fixed-income management team, a primary revenue generator in its US operation, as it looks to capture more business in the US market.

The hiring of Karabelas comes on the heels of a number of senior departures in credit sales a little over a month ago - Thomas Daly, David Nixon, John Cahil, and Tim Cavanaugh left in late October, according to FINRA records.

The firm additionally hired Dwyer Fleming, formerly an interest rate sales exec in hedge fund sales at Deutsche Bank, earlier this year, FINRA records show.