Jefferies & Co. is expanding its MBS group, adding 10 senior professionals to its mortgage trading team over the next several weeks, the bank said today.
Managing Directors William Jennings and Johan Eveland will lead the group. Jennings is expected to join the firm in June; he was most recently a managing director in the mortgage sales division of RBS Greenwich Capital. Eveland, who has already started at Jefferies, was a managing director and co-head of agency and nonagency mortgage-backed securities trading at RBS Greenwich. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, the parent company of RBS Greenwich, said earlier this month that it would cut 200 staffers, largely in the banks securitization, leveraged finance and real estate lending areas.
Jefferies Chairman and CEO Richard Handler said in a statement that the expansion is keeping with Jefferies efforts to take advantage of market dislocations and the occasional availability of exceptional individuals to join our platform.
Jefferies fixed income group, excluding high yield, now consists of 100 professionals. Earlier this month, the firm added Thomas Thees, former chief operating officer of MarketAxess, to the group.
Yesterday, Jefferies announced that Leucadia National Corp. had taken a 13.7% stake in the New York-based investment bank. It also said it appointed a new management team to lead its financial restructuring practice.
