[ by Melanie Gretchen ]

Careers, post-Citigroup and Barclays Plc., are looking pretty good these days.

Christopher Yanney and K.C. Baer, former heads of high-yield bond trading at Citigroup and Barclays respectively, have carved a new future out for themselves, in the form of a new credit-investment firm.  Beginning in January, the New York-based firm will invest through a fund with an initial size of $250 million  [C-I Note: not a bad start, indeed!].

• What to expect: CKC Capital LLC will focus on high-yield debt including distressed companies
• Good timing: (i) Speculative-grade bonds have gained 12.7% this year after a 1.6% loss during the same period in 2011, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. Corporate & High Yield Master Index; (ii) there have been $263.8 billion of high- yield bonds raised this year, according to Bloomberg, compared with $207.3 billion during the same period in 2011 and $210.6 billion in 2010.
• Risks: High-yield average daily trading volume declined to $4.7 billion in the second quarter of the year, from $5.5 billion in the first quarter, according to the second quarter 2012 research quarterly from SIFMA. 

History Boys. The pair, who will co-manage the fund, met 15 years ago when Mr. Baer hired Mr. Yanney as a trader at NationsBank, which merged with BankAmerica Corp. in 1998 to form what became Bank of America Corp.  Since then:

• Mr. Yanney went on to join Barclays in 2006 to run U.S. high- yield bond and credit default swap trading and his first hire was Baer
• When Yanney left to join Morgan Stanley in 2008, Baer took over as head of U.S. high-yield trading at the British bank
• The two worked together again at Citigroup starting in 2011 where Yanney ran high-yield bond and CDS trading and Baer was a senior trader

"It was a good opportunity for us timing-wise, and something we always wanted to do.  We have been through several market cycles together, which we think is a benefit," said Mr. Baer, 44.  For his part, Mr. Yanney, 37, said, "One of our unique attributes is that we have both been heads of trading desks on the sellside.  We’ve worked on the buyside and we have worked together at three different firms."

For further details, go to [Bloomberg, 10/12/12].