Moody’s Investors Service announced today that it has hired two additional senior analysts to supplement its growing Toronto-based staff. Bill Wolfe will cover North American paper and forest products companies, and Peter Routledge will cover Canadian financial institutions.

These are Moody’s Canada’s first new hires in 2004. Both. Wolfe and Routledge hold the title VP/senior analyst.

“After announcing our intention in 2002 to recruit distinguished credit analysts to cover key sectors of the national economy, we have succeeded in assembling a strong Toronto-based analytical staff whose international experiences and impressive credentials are globally applicable,” says Andrew Kriegler, managing director of Moody’s Canada. “Paper and forest products companies are a vital element of the Canadian economy, and our banks and insurance companies are among the world’s most recognized financial institutions.”

In addition to paper and forest products companies and financial institutions, Moody’s Toronto office now has experienced credit analysts covering North American metals and mining companies; Canadian media and telecommunications companies; Canadian structured finance; Canadian utilities, pipelines, and infrastructure; and Canadian provinces and local governments.

As with Moody’s metals and mining analysis, coverage of North American paper and forest products concerns will be centered in Toronto. Wolfe will initiate coverage of a broad portfolio of credits based in the U.S. and Canada.

Wolfe joins Moody’s after 10 years with CIBC World Markets, where he was most recently executive director of credit capital markets in Toronto. He was responsible for structuring and negotiating credit transactions involving bank credit facilities, public and private bonds, equity, merchant banking, investment banking, hedging instruments, and loan syndicates.

He obtained his MBA and his B.A. from the University of Alberta.

Routledge will work with his colleagues in the Financial Institutions Group, which has rating responsibility for banks and insurance companies in the Americas, to ensure that the analysis of domestic concerns retains its global consistency, yet assumes a deeper focus on the Canadian financial services sector.

Since 1997, Routledge had been a management consultant at A.T. Kearney in New York. As a consultant, he advised senior executives at leading financial institutions in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and North America on key strategic issues. Prior to that, he held various leadership roles at Canadian Pacific in both Vancouver and Toronto.

He earned his MBA at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, and his undergraduate degree at Simon Fraser University.