Credit Suisse First Boston has restructured its fixed income and investment banking groups, as well as its global CDO group. The firm promoted Joe Donovan to chairman of ABS and Debt Financing, and Greg Richter to head of Asset Finance Capital Markets. See story, p.7.
Ken Mulford resigned last week from Citigroup group for what was described as "personal reasons" by a banker at the firm. Mulford, formerly a managing director in the credit department at American Capital Access (ACA), joined Citi's mortgage finance group in August 2002. Mulford had only been at ACA for a few months. Prior to Citi, he had been in the Merrill Lynch mortgage ABS group for five years.
John Hupalo recently started at the funding group of student lender First Marblehead Corp. as executive vice president and group head for capital markets. Hupalo had been a managing director in the education finance group at investment bank UBS Paine Webber since 1999. Prior to that, Hupalo worked at Salomon Smith Barney and Manufacturers Hanover. In his new role, Hupalo will oversee all of First Marblehead's capital markets activities, reporting to vice chairman Stephen Anbinder. Managing director Jay Darneby has taken over Hupalo's responsibilities within UBS.
Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw added Richard Ambrey to its London structured finance group, pushing the securitization team to 14 strong. Ambrey joins as partner along with his assistant Mark Thomas. Both previously worked at Dechert specializing in mortgage-backed and property related structured-finance products. They are expected to continue this focus as well as working in other areas of the securitization market.
John Critelli has joined Deutsche Bank Securities as a director and senior structurer in the agency CMO group, reporting to Managing Director and head of agency CMO trading Nicholas Letica. Critelli joins from Merrill Lynch, where he held a similar position. Prior to Merrill Lynch, Critelli was an agency structurer and trader at PaineWebber.
Countrywide Securities Corp. is set to expand its presence into the Agency CMO market, announced CEO Ron Kripalani at the firm's investor conference held last week in New York. He said that moving into the Agency CMO market is "a natural evolution" of the business. The firm is fully committed to making this effort work although Kripalani does not necessarily expect Countrywide's Agency CMO effort to be that big since their business is not "league table-driven." The firm's push into this sector would be headed by Kenneth Haim, who is currently senior vice president in agency CMO trading.
Federal prosecutors have charged an additional 12 more people in the Allied Deals Inc. fraud case that broke mid last year. Total indictments currently stand at 17 in the case that scammed approximately $600 million from up to 10 different banks, primarily PNC Financial Services Group and Fleet Financial Corp. Fraud receivables were subsequently funded out of PNC's ABCP conduit. Collectively the pair claim to have lost $120 million from the scheme (see ASR 5/20/02).
Standard & Poor's last week lowered the residential subprime and residential special servicer rankings of Fairbanks Capital Corp. to Below Average' from Strong.' Due to this rating action, Fairbanks' status as an S&P Select Servicer was withdrawn, and it can no longer be a primary servicer on future S&P-rated RMBS deals. Fairbanks may still serve as a subservicer on these deals with an appropriate master or hot backup servicer on the transaction. RMBS transactions rated by S&P now being serviced by Fairbanks are not impacted by this rating action. Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings also placed the residential primary servicer ratings of Fairbanks on watch for downgrade earlier in the week.
Credit Suisse First Boston is the lead manager on Royalty Pharma's pending pharmaceutical patent-backed deal, currently in the marketing stages. This transaction, a follow-up to the Zerit-backed BioPharma Royalty Trust I, is said to be backed by a broader pool of patents. WestLB London agented the first transaction (see ASR 3/24).
The Bond Market Association projected $75 billion in U.S. Treasury issuance this quarter, a significant spike as a result of increased government spending and a rising deficit. The BMA expects the 10-year T-bill rate to increase to 4.15% and 4.25% by the end of June and September, respectively. "The two-year yield is expected to increase more sharply to 1.85% by the end of June and 2.00% by the end of September from the 1.49% yield seen at the end of the first quarter of this year," the BMA reports.
John Mullen recently resigned from his position as head of global structured finance at Dutch bank ABN AMRO. Mullen joined ABN in February 2000, after a lengthy period at the then J.P. Morgan & Co. The move leaves Pat Fay to run the securitization effort for ABN. This comes roughly one month after Mullen hired James Moore away from his former employer, to run the U.S. ABS operations.
