Finance

KGS-Alpha Capital Markets hired Robert Piano for the firm's new ABS team. Piano joins from Barclays Capital after nine years in the bank's asset securitization group, where he was most recently a director specializing in esoteric asset deals.

Prudential Mortgage Capital Co. appointed Scott Heath to its Atlanta office as a loan officer covering the mid-Atlantic, southeast and southwest regions.

Minnesota has selected Barclays Capital to lead a team of eight underwriting firms that will bring the state’s first ever tobacco bond sale to market this fall.

Frank Byrne was let go last week as UBS' head of structured-products underwriting and origination, 18 months after he was hired to spearhead growth in those areas, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Bank of America Corp.'s plan to eliminate roughly 3,500 jobs this quarter marks just the start of an efficiency drive that could reduce the company's global workforce by about 10%, according to a report in the Charlotte Observer.

A coalition of industry groups is urging Congress to act quickly to maintain the GSE loan limit at $729,750, saying the pending expiration is hurting both home sales and application volume.

When the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) late Friday unveiled its $200 billion lawsuit against investment banking firms that sold faulty MBS to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it also targeted executives who signed the original shelf registration documents on the securities in question.

RBS Securities has poached Pat Beranek from Mizuho Securities to be jointly responsible for trading non-mortage ABS with Alan Johannsen, the Stamford, Connecticut-based bank said in a release. Beranek will report to Adam Siegal, co-head of U.S. ABS, MBS and CMBS Trading.

The state attorneys general have a secret weapon in their negotiations with the largest mortgage servicers: the results of a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)investigation into the banks' robo-signing practices.

Wyndham Worldwide Corp. has completed a term securitization deal called Sierra Timeshare 2011-2 Receivables Funding.

Auto auto deals are filling up the ABS pipeline this week from The Huntington National Bank (HNB), Santander Consumer USA, Ally Bank and AmeriCredit Financial Services.

Stephen L. Ledbetter, senior vice president of MBS for the Ginnie Mae, is leaving the agency for a senior position at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), according to officials familiar with the matter.

Manager Activity: Autos Book Runner Amount (US$ Mil) Rank Mkt.

The percentage of HAMP modifications completed by mortgage servicers fell 10% in July from the prior month while the percentage of proprietary restructurings rose 11%, according to new government figures.

While the sudden departure of Bank of New York Mellon CEO Robert Kelly late Wednesday might have come as a surprise to some industry observers, it was actually a change Rochdale Securities Bank analyst Dick Bove called for two weeks ago.

Although Bank of America – for now – is committed to staying in warehouse finance, it may exit that business as well.

The Federal Reserve Board's decision to hold public hearings and extend the comment period on Capital One Financial Corp.'s planned acquisition of ING Direct has drawn the ire of House Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus.

Discover Financial Services has agreed to purchase $2.5 billion of private student loans from Citigroup, as the lender continues diversifying beyond its main credit card business.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is on the verge of filing a barrage of civil claims against investment banking firms that packaged nonprime loans into MBS while misrepresenting the quality of the underlying collateral, according to a new published report.

Golub Capital Partners is preparing a $300 million CLO. Golub Capital Partners CLO 10 is a managed cash-flow CLO collateralized primarily by broadly syndicated first-lien senior secured corporate loans, according to a presale report by Moody’s Investors Service.