People
Mark S. Zucker has been named senior managing director and head of the Structured Finance Division of MBIA Insurance Corp. Zucker will be responsible for the company's domestic structured finance activities in the new issue and secondary markets.
Robin Conner has left the London office of Moody's Investors Service, where he was a co-head of the European Structured Finance Group, working with Catherine Gerst and Detlef Scholz. It's rumored that Conner is moving over to ACE Securities.
In an unrelated people move, Frederic Drevon is moving back from Moody's Hong Kong office to the London office.
Glen McDermott, a director at Standard & Poor's Ratings Services covering residential mortgage-backed securities, credit card ABS and collteralized debt obligations will move to Salomon Smith Barney at the end of March. In his new position, he will do dedicated research on esoteric asset classes such as CDOs, stranded costs and tobacco securitization.
Miscellaneous
Advanta Corp. is expected to file an S-3 with the Securities and Exchange Commission within two weeks time. From the shelf, the company will issue bonds backed by small business credit cards. Other than slightly better portfolio performance and slightly larger average balance, the deals will look similar to other credit card transactions, said a company official in a previous interview with Asset Sales Report.
Merrill Lynch was in the market last week with a lease-backed transaction for top mid-west financial service concern, Comerica Bank. The transaction featured a 10-year final and six-year average life. Comerica Inc. reported sales of $3.4 million and net income of $673 million in 1999.
