BNP Paribas Grows Equities Sales Team

Hires Five Directors to Equities Platform in New York


NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - May 2, 2011) - BNP Paribas Corporate and Investment Banking is pleased to announce the addition of five directors to its Equities platform in New York. Joining the bank are Joe Abbatiello, Michele Backman, Sebastian Boulan, Mark Kuhlman and Stefan Yurica.

Sebastian Boulan: Sebastian joins as head of Event Driven Sales reporting to Matthew Moran, Head of Cash and Listed Derivatives Sales-Trading for Equities, North America. Prior to joining BNP Paribas, Sebastian spent eight years with Morgan Stanley where he was head of the Special Situations desk. Before Morgan Stanley, Sebastian worked at Colden Capital, an Event driven hedge fund, as a senior arbitrage analyst.

Joe Abbatiello: Joe joins the Event Driven Sales team as a director, reporting to Sebastian Boulan. Before joining BNP Paribas, Joe worked for BGC Partners as an equity sales-trader and was previously with Pali Capital from 1999-2009.

Michele Backman: Michele joins the Corporate Access team, reporting to Kemp Schuessler, Head of Corporate Access, North America. Michele has over 14 years of experience in the field and was previously with HSBC where she initiated and was Global Head of Corporate Access.

Mark Kuhlman: Mark joins BNP Paribas as a director and International Sales trader, jointly reporting to Matthew Moran and Dan Miller, Global head of Execution Sales. Mark was formerly with Morgan Stanley for 16 years on their International Equity Sales trading team.

Stefan Yurica: Stefan joins BNP Paribas as a director on the Derivative Sales team focusing on hedge funds, reporting to Matthew Moran. Stefan was previously with Citadel and J.P. Morgan.

The Event Driven Sales team focuses on risk arbitrage deals and the sales of U.S. equities related to merger and acquisitions, distressed and other specific situations related to corporate restructurings. BNP Paribas' Event Driven desk offers an integrated cash and derivatives sales team. The Corporate Access group provides institutional investors with direct access to corporate issuers and establishing relationships between institutional investors and corporates to strengthen a company's investor base.

"We are seeing significant opportunity for growth and increased interest in the event driven space," commented Matthew Moran. "Clients have expressed interest in a single point of entry to the market, and given our global strength in derivatives and our growing cash equities business, we are able to make this possible by integrating our cash and derivatives products for our event-driven clients."

"The expansion of our Corporate Access and Event Driven teams were driven by client demand and are natural extensions of our business," added Chris Innes, head of Institutional Equity Sales, Americas. "We continue to seek opportunities to better serve institutional investor's sales, trading and financing needs."

BNP Paribas Corporate and Investment Banking
BNP Paribas Corporate and Investment Banking employs around 20,000 people in over 50 countries and services 14,000 corporate and institutional clients worldwide.

BNP Paribas CIB excels in:
Derivatives - where it is one of the leading global players in rates, credit, forex, commodity and equity derivatives
Capital markets - where it is one of the top European houses in both ECM and DCM (bond, securitization, convertibles and equity issuance)
Structured finance - where it is amongst the leaders in acquisition, export, project, energy and commodity finance globally
www.cib.bnpparibas.com

About BNP Paribas
BNP Paribas (www.bnpparibas.com) is one of the strongest banks in the world*. The Group has a presence in more than 80 countries and more than 200,000 employees, including more than 160,000 in Europe. It ranks highly in its three core activities: Retail Banking, Investment Solutions and Corporate & Investment Banking. In Europe, the Group has four domestic markets (Belgium, France, Italy and Luxembourg) and BNP Paribas Personal Finance is the leader in consumer lending. BNP Paribas is rolling out its integrated retail banking model across the Europe-Mediterranean zone and boasts a large network in the western part of the United States. In its Corporate & Investment Banking and Investment Solutions activities, BNP Paribas also enjoys top positions in Europe, a strong presence in the Americas and solid and fast-growing businesses in Asia.

*Rated AA by Standard & Poor's i.e. 3rd rating level on a scale of 22.

Contact Information:

Press contacts :
Michele Sicard
Head of Corporate Communications, New York
212.841.3070

Megan Stinson
Media Relations, New York
212.841.3809