New York, NY – The International Association of Credit Portfolio Managers (IACPM) today announced that Ivan A. Marcotte, senior vice president at Bank ofAmerica, and Véronique Ormezzano, global head of corporate and investment banking portfolio management at BNP Paribas, have been elected Association chair and vice-chair, respectively. Each will serve one year terms that will expire in November, 2006.  Keith Ho, managing director and global head of portfolio management at Barclays Capital and Steve Bennett, senior vice president at CIBC, will remain on the Association’s board as secretary and treasurer, respectively, until their terms expire at the end of 2006. Gene Guill, managing director in the loan exposure management group at Deutsche Bank, was the IACPM’s 2005 chair.
“We are extremely pleased to welcome Ivan and Véronique to their new positions,” said Som-lok Leung, executive director of IACPM. “The members will be well served by their outstanding leadership skills and years of professional experience in credit portfolio management.”  “I am very pleased to have the privilege to chair IACPM at a point of rapid market development,” said Mr. Marcotte. “I look forward to working with the 2006 board and member firms in order to continue the positive momentum created by outgoing chair Gene and others toward advancing the professional discipline of
credit portfolio management.”

The board has identified several top initiatives it plans to pursue in the coming year. One area of focus is expanding the IACPM membership beyond traditional loan credit portfolio managers to reflect the expansion of credit portfolio holdings to positions other than loans, such as bonds and collateralized debt obligations. The Association will also accelerate its ongoing efforts to facilitate greater liquidity in middle market credit portfolios, where a predominance of private firms and absence of market standards for measuring credit risk is a significant obstacle to developing sufficient liquidity
to facilitate the mitigation of credit risk. In addition, the Board plans to encourage IACPM’s expansion into consumer credit portfolios, and will continue working with the membership to define and publish best practices in measuring the benefits of active credit portfolio management.  “Credit portfolio management is becoming a real business at banks and other credit investors, as a disciplined way to optimize capital allocation and returns on this asset class. The IACPM has been very instrumental in this evolution in the last few years, and my new role as vice chair of IACPM is a clear signal that
European banks have also caught up significantly on the large U.S. institutions which have led the move since the 1990s,” said Ms. Ormezzano.  In his current role, Mr. Marcotte provides leadership in the development and execution of credit portfolio optimization strategies. He has worked at Bank of America and its predecessor institutions for more than 17 years, and his prior roles include market risk and capital markets credit executive, European chief operating officer, asset/liability management risk and derivative strategist, and money market economist. Mr. Marcotte holds a B.A. in economics with distinction from the Virginia Military Institute and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of South Carolina.  Ms. Ormezzano joined Paribas risk department in 1994 to implement the risk-adjusted return on capital (RAROC) methodology throughout the firm’s investment banking arm. In 1998, she moved to create and develop the portfolio management function for corporate and investment banking. Prior to joining Paribas, she worked for most major French banking institutions as a management consultant for Accenture.  Ms. Ormezzano is a graduate of Hautes Etudes Commerciales.

The IACPM, with 58 member institutions located in ten countries, is a professional association dedicated to the advancement of credit portfolio management.