Chris Johnson, former chairman of leveraged finance at Merrill Lynch, has re-emerged at Deutsche Bank as a senior member of the bank's leveraged finance origination team.

Richard Byrne, Deutsche's head of financial sponsors and leveraged finance, jumped on the chance to hire Johnson, who has 15 years experience in the leveraged finance business, after he became available late last year. Johnson left Merrill soon after the bank offered voluntary redundancy packages to its entire staff.