Jefferies taps junk-bond vet Pope: sources

Jefferies is doubling down on one of its riskiest bond-trading desks by hiring a top salesman from Angelo Gordon & Co. — just as Wall Street is preparing to binge on new issues of the junky assets, The Post has learned.

Michael Pope, a former managing director at Angelo Gordon who was a senior distressed debt trader there since 2012, joined Jefferies this week as a managing director in sales, according to people familiar with the move.

Pope has worked in the world of distressed debt, where banks and hedge funds buy up the corporate bonds of firms at risk of going bankrupt, for more than a decade. His new job at Jefferies is an unusual return to a bank after going to a hedge fund.

Investors can sell the bonds for a big profit after the corporation completes a turnaround.

Before Angelo Gordon, Pope was a managing director in the same field at Goldman Sachs.

The hire comes as Wall Street is amassing huge war chests to buy up these riskier bonds.

The $1.9 billion hedge fund Mudrick Capital, which is led by Jason Mudrick, is marketing a new fund to buy up these troubled assets, the Financial Times reported earlier this month.

Seven other distressed funds have raised a record $2.2 billion on average this year, the FT reported, citing data from Preqin.

Jonathan Gasthalter, a spokesman for Angelo Gordon, declined to comment. Richard Khaleel, a Jefferies spokesman, also declined to comment. Pope wasn’t immediately available for comment.