The main area of worry for RBS was its huge leveraged finance and commercial real estate lending businesses.

Also, Richard Saltzman, who oversees real estate and leveraged finance, was named chief operating officer for global investment banking.

After the sale of Crescent, Attanasio remained a senior partner and chief investment officer of the firm's leveraged finance and mezzanine capital group.

Mr. Stevens is the head of leveraged finance at the Jefferies Group, an investment bank known for lining up complex financing for high-risk companies.

The first was exporting business models that have been successful in the United States to Europe and Asia like leveraged finance and private equity.

Next month she is to become an associate in leveraged finance at Goldman, Sachs & Company in New York.

Credit risk focuses around capital markets activities, such as loan syndication, bond issuance, restructuring, and leveraged finance.

Latham & Watkins also aggressively entered the high-yield (junk bond) and leveraged finance legal markets and served as primary outside counsel for Drexel.

Mr. Cutter, 37, is a senior vice president for leveraged finance at Lehman Brothers, the New York investment bank.

In July 2007, turmoil that had been affecting the mortgage markets, spilled over into the leveraged finance and high-yield debt markets.