Two longtime DBRS mortgage-backed securities analysts will take lead roles of the combined North American CMBS and RMBS groups when the DBRS and Morningstar Credit Services (MCR) complete a merger of their ratings operations.
The firms jointly announced that Erin Stafford will head the NA commercial mortgaged-backed securities ratings team and Quincy Tang will lead the residential MBS group. Stafford and Tang currently hold similar roles with DBRS.
Tang has been a managing director at DBRS for 15 years, managing all aspects of RMBS securitizations, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Stafford’s position is unchanged as she led the North American CMBS group for fourteen years at DBRS before the merger.
Both will report to DBRS global structured finance head Claire Mezzannotte, who like Stafford and Tang will adopt a similar role for the agencies’ combined operations.
In May, Morningstar Inc. (Nasdaq: MORN) announced a $669 million acquisition of Toronto-based DBRS, the world’s fourth-largest credit ratings agency, to combine with its own U.S.-based Morningstar Credit Ratings fixed-income research and ratings business. Toronto-based DBRS, formerly Dominion Bond Rating Service, has been majority-owned by the Carlyle Group and Warburg Pincus since 2015.
The transaction closed in early July, the point at which Morningstar and DBRS began the integration of their MBS analytics teams as well as the groups for asset-backed securities and structured credit. Both firms plan to merge their U.S. registrations as national ratings service agencies; but will maintain the DBRS registrations Canada and Europe (the U.K., Germany and Spain), according to the announcement.
Until "integration is finalized, MCR and DBRS will each issue and monitor credit ratings in accordance with their respective methodologies, policies, procedures and published rating scales,” the July 11 release said.
