Along with the recent expansion of its platform to include trading in all MBS and ABS, Beacon Capital Markets appointed David Weisberger as co-CEO to work with senior management to further expand the platform's business.
He was a mortgage derivatives investment manager who founded Watch Hill Investment Partners.
Weisberger, who serves as co-CEO along with founder Norman Epstein, launched several funds and private accounts under Watch Hill Management Partners, and, from 1994 to 2006, saw the firm's assets increase to more than $1 billion with average net returns of more than 20% a year. Recently, the new hire has been consulting to several financial services companies. He was a managing director at Prudential Securities in MBS and ABS analytics before launching his fund business.
John Knox has also joined the firm as managing director of sales and marketing. Knox will oversee all sales and support functions and will further build out the sales team.
Most recently, he was a managing director in the institutional equities division at Bear Stearns, where he worked on developing an electronic trading platform for equities for institutional clients.
He was formerly a fixed-income trader at Eastbridge Capital, Wertheim Schroder and Manufacturers Hanover.
Beacon Capital has been expanding the base of buy- and sell-side users of its Trade Discovery electronic marketplace, which is focused on trading the complete range of MBS and ABS. The level of postings and trading activity has gone up considerably in the last couple of months. This reflects an expanded product line up, and the market’s needs to efficiently conduct price discovery and locate liquidity in the markets.
"This is an opportune time for market participants to embrace a trading platform that will assist them in finding both liquidity and price transparency in the current, difficult market environment," Weisberger said. "With the recent addition of non-agency MBS, ABS and CMBS to the platform, we have a bigger opportunity than ever to help market participants reach their trading goals."
“We are very excited to have David join us at this time,” Epstein said. “His deep experience and knowledge of mortgage securities markets will be of great assistance as we seek to grow our Trade Discovery Platform to the next level. Fixed income investors are becoming very attuned to finding best executions, and we believe our platform is uniquely positioned to help them achieve these goals.”
"I am excited to work with our client base and provide them with the electronic platform that they have requested,” Knox said. “Our clients have expressed strong interest in Trade Discovery as an improvement to their everyday workflow and we will continue to be responsive to their needs."
