SFC Associates, a securities and financial litigation consultancy, hired Chi Lee, Robert Maroney and Professor Chester Spatt to its structured products team.
Lee has consulted on more than 20 structured products-related matters. His expertise includes the structuring, pricing and trading of complex structured products such as ABS CDOs; CDO-squared; CLOs; and RMBS and CMBS.
Lee was head of the ABS derivatives desk at UBS until 2008, where he structured and traded bespoke products that referenced portfolios of RMBS and CMBS, as well as CDOs. Lee also structured the first hybrid synthetic CDO that was backed by an asset-backed collateralized default swap.
Maroney also brings more than 20 years of experience as a mortgage finance professional and credit analyst. He provides expertise in all aspects of mortgage loan origination, underwriting and securitization, covering such areas as underwriting guidelines, policies and procedures; federal and state regulatory compliance; and property valuation practices. Maroney’s experience at institutions like Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Moody’s Investors Service and WaMu Capital Corp. included coordinating loan level credit, regulatory compliance, and property due diligence for bulk whole loan purchases.
Spatt is the Pamela R. and Kenneth B. Dunn Professor of Finance and director of the center for financial markets at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business in Pittsburgh. He has expertise in areas such as auction rate securities (ARS), including the use of ARS for municipal bonds, fixed-income valuation and hedging; taxes; financial markets; and disclosure and regulation. He has also served as the Chief Economist and Director in the Office of Economic Analysis at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
"Structured products, which were at the heart of the financial crisis, have become a centerpiece of litigation growing out of that crisis,” said SFC Associates founder and President Ezra Zask.
In 2011, SFC Associates was retained to provide expertise in more than a dozen new cases. In line with that growth, SFC Associates has been ramping up its hiring and expanding its network of affiliates.
