Barclays Capital has hired Ekaterina (Katya) Aleksandrova to work in its term ABS structuring group, reporting to managing director and group head Michael Wade. Aleksandrova has worked for the past eight months at recently sold surety provider FGIC. The move reunites her with Giuseppe Pagano and Marta Ricardo, with whom she worked in the credit card group at JPMorgan Securities for two years.
Deborah McDonald has been hired by Wachovia Corporate and Institutional Trust Services as new business development officer in its structured-finance trust services group, where she will head the trustee sales team for CDOs. She has spent the previous six years working in U.S. Bank's corporate trust sales group, where she was a vice president. She will work out of Wachovia's Hartford, Conn. office, reporting to Christophe Schroeder, structured finance trust sales manager.
JPMorgan Chase has reorganized its corporate trust and servicing operations. Under the new structure, Senior Vice President Joe Giordano will head up the trustee group and Manager of Asset Servicing Jodi Meth will run third-party servicing unit System & Servicing Technology (SST). Under Giordano will be the structured finance, municipal and corporate debt trustee operations, with 10 managers reporting to him. Meth, meanwhile, will run the SST unit, with approximately eight managers reporting to her.
A large foreign player is now seeking six to seven vice president and director level sales positions for its Chicago, New York and San Francisco offices. Candidates should have extensive experience in term asset and structured credit sales. For consideration, email
Hannover Funding, administered by NORD/LB has had its program limit removed; the program outstandings can now increase to the extent there is available liquidity. NORD/LB has increased its authorized liquidity for Hannover Funding to $3 billion. In addition, Hannover Funding has liquidity facilities with other banks, enabling it to go well beyond $3 billion in outstandings.
Craig Wolson recently joined the New York office of international law firm Duane Morris LLP. Wolson was hired as a partner in the finance group to take charge of the firm's securitization practice. He was formerly a Special Counsel at Schulte Roth & Zabel. Prior to that, he was Counsel at Mayer Brown & Platt's New York office. He specializes in structured finance transactions of all types, specifically CDOs (including synthetics), other ABS, as well as derivatives.
Student lender Academic Manage- ment Services (AMS) has yet to respond to market concerns over its collateral reporting inaccuracies and recent management shakeup, sources said. AMS has responded to rating agency requests, through progress was described as "slow" by one source. The unit of insurance conglomerate UICI, had acted quickly in resolving its issues with surety provider MBIA, which guarantees $839 million in term and auction rate ABS, as well as a $633 million conduit facility.
Banc One Capital Markets released the inaugural issue of a residential ABS research product named Home Equity Perspectives last week. The report, tentatively scheduled for a quarterly release, focuses on topical issues in the home-equity ABS sector. The first issue focused on a state-by-state look at the impact of recent changes in the Alternative Mortgage Transaction Parity Act.
Student lender Nelnet recently filed to go public, according to records filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company plans to raise $200 million in its offering, led jointly by Banc of America Securities and JPMorgan Securities, at a yet-to-be determined share price. In the filing, Nelnet outlines its operations, including $18 billion in loans serviced. Nelnet originated or acquired $2.7 billion in new loans in 2002, of which $859 million were consolidation loans, which cannot be refinanced again. Its own portfolio sits at $9.5 billion. Last year, Nelnet generated $190 million in net-interest income and $125 million in servicing fee income.
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently announced that it had accepted a guilty plea from former National Century Financial Enterprises executive Sherry Gibson, who admitted that the company improperly took funds from NCFE's securitization trusts and sent fraudulent reports to investors and auditors. She is the first to cop a plea to the SEC's newly filed criminal complaint against NCFE and it is unclear at this point which of the seven other NCFE executives named by Gibson will be taken down. Former CEO and company founder Lance Poulson, however, has already been implicated in connection with Gibson's plea, according to published reports.
Asset-backed commercial paper volume showed a fairly steady decline in volume during August, dropping to $715 billion, down $20 billion month-over-month, and about $19 billion year-over-year. Outstandings, however, edged up to $724 billion as of last Wednesday's Federal Reserve tally.
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) last week initiated a regulatory process leading to the termination for cause of two former executives of Freddie Mac, Leland Brendsel and Vaughn A Clarke. This is part of the agency's ongoing special examination of accounting and management practices at Freddie Mac.
Federal Housing Finance Board Chairman John Korsmo has said he is now working on a proposed rule requiring the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Korsmo noted that the boards of directors of several FHLBanks are committed to voluntary SEC registration. However, the directors want regulation to remove concerns about potential lawsuits by shareholders. He announced the Finance Board would vote Sept. 10 on the proposed rule and issue it for a 120-day comment period.
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