Opening Credit: A Practitioner's Guide to Credit Investment

Justin McGowan's career in finance spans 25 years. His analytical experience covers the full range of both equity and credit instruments and he has worked on the sell- and buy-sides in disciplines ranging from bank loans, corporate bonds, emerging market equities, long/short equity and credit hedge funds, long-only funds and synthetic credit products. After an early apprenticeship in corporate finance, spent largely in Southern European markets, he moved on to work at a major credit ratings agency in New York and London, where he focused on the energy sector and subsequently on Germany's Mittelstand issuers across a wide range of industries.

Thereafter, he became an Institutional Investor-rated emerging markets equity analyst and director of equity research, working principally out of New York, Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro. He has presented at industry conferences in Latin America, the USA and Europe. Returning to his native England in 2001, he re-entered the world of credit, where he has worked ever since. He has managed investments in corporations and parastatal entities in the financial, manufacturing, energy, natural resources, retailing, consumer, healthcare and media sectors globally.

Justin has an MA in Medieval and Modern Languages from St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, and is a holder of the IMC. He lives in Surrey with his wife and two daughters.

Duncan Sankey has 27 years' experience in credit investment and lending in a career spanning commercial and investment banking, a leading rating agency, the origination and management of sell-side research teams and, for the last decade, fund management, including investment in alternative strategies, hedge funds, loans and structured long-only and long-short corporate credit. His analytical experience has covered the full gamut from financials and investment-grade and high yield corporates (utilities, autos and suppliers, industrials, leisure, consumer products, transportation and real estate) to sovereigns, supra-sovereigns and parastatals. His experience of credit analysis and investment encompasses both established and emerging markets (particularly those of Asia and Eastern Europe) and he has worked in London, New York and Atlanta.

As a practitioner of credit in the wake of the corporate scandals during the first few years of the millennium, he became increasingly interested in the role played by corporate governance. This led him to pursue studies in the topic in the academic arena, where he has written on such matters as the bond market's failure to adopt standardised comprehensive bond covenants and contributed to published academic research on governance, regulation and financial market instability and its impact on policy. Duncan has written on credit issues for trade journals, discussed them on financial TV and often presents on credit matters to industry conferences. He is an associate of the London Centre for Corporate Governance and Ethics, holds and IMC and is a member of the Examinations and Education Committee of CFA UK.

Duncan has an MSc in Corporate Governance and Ethics from the University of London and an MA in Medieval and Modern Languages from St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.