LONDON -- Swapping a six-figure salary for $300 a month and responsibility for over $9 billion doesn't look like much of a good deal.

Yet Krassimir Katev - a former bond and currency trader known for his dealmaking savvy - took it to become head of debt management and treasury for the government of Bulgaria.

Mr. Katev weighed the chance of making a difference in his home country against giving up a well-paid job in London and made what many in the banking community would find a puzzling choice.

"I earn probably 100 times less, but it seemed a reasonable risk to take," he says.

In March, Mr. Katev engineered a $1.325 billion swap of Brady bonds into longer-term euro bonds, using skills and connections he developed in his previous career to get the best deal possible for his country.

Named after former U.S. Treasury secretary Nicholas Brady, Brady bonds are dollar-denominated debt instruments issued by emerging market countries to restructure commercial bank loans in default.

"They got the timing of the Brady bond exchange right," said Borislav Vladimirov, emerging market fixed income strategist at UBS Warburg. "To swap Brady bonds, which are dollar-denominated floating-rate notes, into euro bonds is very attractive in an environment of a weakening dollar."

The bond exchange didn't enrich him the way it would have had he been sitting on the other side of the negotiating table, but he says it was just as rewarding. It saved Bulgaria money on interest payments, lengthened its repayment period and shed some of the stigma attached to Brady bonds, instruments that tell a tale of financial turmoil.

Mr. Katev, who is 33 years old, was born in Varna, Bulgaria's main port city. Fluent in Russian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and English, he was one of the few able to leave the former communist country in 1989 to study economics and finance in Hungary, New York and London.

Mr. Katev faced a baptism by fire when he started as a trader at Paribas in New York. It was 1994. Shortly after he started, the Mexico crisis erupted.

"As a market maker in Mexican bradys, with full book responsibility, I leaned about panic and fear - you can easily get scared in such an environment," Mr. Katev says. "But I learned to handle the situation, and I made money."

Colleagues say Mr. Katev did well as an emerging-market debt and currency trader, first at Paribas in New York and London then with Daiwa Europe Ltd. and AIG International Inc.

But the ties to his homeland remained strong. "I was still following Bulgarian politics during the 12 years I lived and worked outside Bulgaria," Mr. Katev says.

In 1998, he met up with other Bulgarian expatriates in London, among them current Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Nikolay Vassilev and Finance Minister Milen Velchev, to discuss politics and economics back home.

The informal coffee klatsches turned into regular meetings of what would become know as the "City Club."

In June 2001, some of the club members - all investment bankers - decided to follow Simeon II of Bulgaria into politics when the former king returned from his exile in Spain to become Bulgarian Prime Minister.

Mr. Katev left his job as a vice president at AIG's asset management group in London and joined the National Movement for Simeon II, Bulgaria's ruling party, but only to take on what he views as a technocratic role.

"I don't consider myself much of a politician," he explains, "I try to limit my political engagements to situations in which I can make a strong point."

He walked into a political hornet's nest over the Brady bond swap he proposed.

Financial markets outside Bulgaria expressed some interest in such a deal. Domestically, though, the swap faced strong opposition from the former government, which wouldn't acknowledge the social and economic benefits of such a market transaction.

"There was a lot of mudslinging going on," he recalls. "The president threatened to consider a veto," Mr. Katev says, and the majority of the opposition party trooped out of parliament instead of casting their votes for or against the Brady bond exchange.

Some who worked on the Brady swap liked the way Katev blocked out partisan politics in pushing the commercial deal forward.

"Whatever the political noise, Krassimir's only agenda was to get the best deal for his country. He's very professional and very much hands on," said Jonathan Brown, managing director at J.P. Morgan's emerging market debt syndicate in London. "The auction proved a major success - Krassimir didn't pay above market levels for any of the new bonds issued," Brown said.

Others say the Brady deal also highlighted that - even as a technocratic politician - Mr. Katev hadn't lost the "win-at-all-costs" mentality of a trader.

One banker claims Katev misled him on the Bulgarian government's intention to buy back bradys on the open market - just the sort of thing that goes on among traders looking for an edge.

Mr. Katev's decision to serve his country has meant some personal sacrifices: Besides having to travel economy class, even when on business, he had to leave his wife - also a banker - behind in London just shortly after getting married. Most of his friends, colleagues and acquaintances are also there.

Mr. Katev doesn't know how long he'll stay in government and politics. One thing he can say: Trading is in his blood, and as long as there are deals to be done, he's happy. When those kinds of opportunities dry up, he gets restless.