People
Salomon Smith Barney recently hired banker Doug Lipton as a vice president in its credit card ABS origination group. Lipton had worked at Goldman Sachs for five years. He will report to Bob Malin and Ted Yarborough, co-heads of U.S. term ABS.
Craig Squire joins HSBC's London conduit securitization team as head of structuring and will be responsible for structuring and executing functions of the banks first hybrid ABCP conduit, Regency Assets. He joins the team from Norton Rose where he worked counselling investment banks and corporate companies on ABCP programs. Squire's expertise also extends to the areas of credit derivatives, including total return swaps and synthetic CDOs.
Susan Estes, formerly global head of Treasury and agency trading at Morgan Stanley, recently joined Deutsche Bank as managing director and head of fixed income in North America. The new hire replaces Thomas Paul, who was appointed chairman of the Global Markets Interest Rate Risk Committee, a newly created position. Both report to Wolfgang Matis, global head of fixed income. Estes left Morgan Stanley in 2000 to launch Heck.com, an Internet marketing firm. She also served on the Bond Market Association's board of directors. In his new role, Paul will collaborate with global trading managers from different departments to direct and augment risk-management across the Global Markets division.
Greenwich Capital Markets has recently expanded its MBS and ABS sales efforts with the hiring of Thomas J. Silberstein, Milo T. Gonzalez and Christopher Norwine. Silberstein, formerly a mortgage-backed salesman from Morgan Stanley, is managing director in Greenwich reporting to George Davala. Gonzalez, who was director and product manager for structured product/sales at UBS/Paine Webber, is managing director in Chicago reporting to Ryan Mullaney. Norwine, who was hired from Lehman Brothers' banking sales group, is senior vice president in San Francisco reporting to Henson Orser.
The Bond Market Association will present MBNA Bank America Executive Vice Chairman Vernon Wright with the BMA's Distinguished Service Award. Awarding will be made at the BMA's annual awards dinner scheduled for Oct.9 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.
News
Last week's Wall Street Journal article reported that Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Michael Oxley stated that he is confident that there would be a terrorism insurance bill on the President's desk before Congress adjourns. While CMBS analysts view this as a positive sign that the terrorism insurance issue is moving forward, there are still differences over the government's potential liability for damage In the event of litigation and whether government assistance should be repaid. Darrell Wheeler, a CMBS strategist at Salomon Smith Barney, said "a loan-based program would not be sufficient to enable insurers to cover what could be unlimited liability." These issues become especially important as the Sept. 30 deadline for single-asset downgrades by Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings approaches.
Marconi plc disclosed its proposed restructuring plans to refinance its E4.1billion on-balance sheet debt. The plan includes a hefty debt-for-equity swap that would leave the majority control of the company to lending banks and bondholders. Market analysts expect that this will have some impact on European CDOs. Deutsche Bank said that most affected will likely be older vintages of high grade products, citing Padova Finance 1 and Tagus 2 as two deals with exposure to the company. While there is still no credit event called for Marconi, analysts stated it was just a matter of time before an event is triggered.
The Department of Trade and Industry in the U.K. recently released a consultation document that addressed the issue of calculation methods to determine the amount a consumer loan borrower owes a lender when paying off a loan early. Current formula dictated by Rule of 78 is being challenged on the basis that the Rule of 78 favors the lender because it calculates greater amounts outstanding on loans. The proposed changes affect consumer loans, but Fitch Ratings reported that the difference in payout amounts between existing calculations and future ones will be minimal and should not affect loan prepayments.
Fitch Ratings has launched a new quarterly publication that is dedicated to tracking and analyzing evolving credit trends in the U.S. corporate bond market. The new study provides a macro view of practically the whole U.S. corporate bond market, comprising 2,517 U.S.-domiciled issuers and 16,540 bond issues as of June 30.
