BNP Paribas hired Stacey Mitchell to head its New York-based U.S. ABS syndicate desk. Her title will be Director. Mitchell had worked at JPMorgan Securities since its 2001 merger with Chase Securities and had worked at Chase prior to its acquisition. She reports to Global Syndicate head Peter Masco.
Research analyst Ryan Nohrenberg has left Barclays Capital to accept a position as a desk analyst at UBS, where he will support Saro Cutri, who trades non-agency MBS subordinates for UBS.
Schulte Roth & Zabel named Phillip Azzollini and Adam Katz as new partners in the firm. Azzollini focuses on ABS issuers, underwriters and servicers, as well as CDO managers while Katz focuses on CDOs, synthetic transactions and derivatives. Additionally, SR&Z promoted John Garces and Faith Hudnell to special counsel in the structured products group.
The CIT Group Inc. hired Walter Owens as executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer, a newly created position. Owens will report directly to Jeffrey Peek, CIT Group's chairman and CEO. Owens previously worked in a similar position at GE Commercial Finance, and, prior to that, as managing director in the GE Commercial Finance securitization group.
Fred Horton resigned last week from his position as a managing director at TCW, where he was involved in the firm's CDO portfolio management, the company reported in an email statement. His duties as marketing liaison will be divided among existing senior personnel within the 40-member team headed by TCW President Jeffrey Gundlach.
MBIA announced last week that it planned to restate its earnings going back to 1998, in order to correct the accounting treatment for two reinsurance agreements that MBIA entered into in 1998 with Converium Re (previously known as Zurich Reinsurance North America) in regard to municipal securities exposure, according to a release. MBIA added that it does not expect any effect on its triple-A ratings.
Democratic legislators in Washington state are pushing to issue up to $300 million of municipal tobacco bonds, according to ASR sister publication The Bond Buyer. Proceeds from the transaction would go to reduce the state's $2.2 billion budget deficit. Washington receives roughly $300 million to $310 million every two years, according to The Bond Buyer, totaling $4.5 billion over the next 25 years. Governor Christine Gregoire, a Democrat, reportedly opposes the transaction.
Irvine, Calif.-based Balboa Capital completed $75 million funding facility financed by RBS Greenwich Capital and insured by Radian Asset Assurance, the company announced last week. Balboa will use the facility to fund transactions originated by the company's U.S.-based direct, vendor and broker equipment lease financing channels, the company added in a release.
A Thai entity mulling whether to enter the ABS fray is Krung Thai Card, a unit of Krung Thai Bank. The company, which last year recorded revenues of THB4.125 billion - up 58% from 2003, believes securitization can play a part in its 2005 expansion plans and help manage its capital more efficiently. As its parent already has experience arranging domestic ABS deals - notably the THB1.2 billion issue for the National Housing Authority last July.
The Bond Market Association last week submitted a comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission last week asking the SEC to develop a new set of disclosure rules pertaining to synthetic ABS, as oppose to addressing synthetic deals on an ad hoc basis as they come up. In its letter, the BMA highlighted three areas of disclosure, namely: issuer, source of payments and measure of payments. The Association also recommended that the SEC specify the requirements for synthetic ABS that could be publicly registered as well as sold to a larger investor base.
New Century Financial Corp. announced last week that loan production volume for February 2005 totaled $2.9 billion, a 16% increase versus with the same period last year. Year-to-date production was up 18% over last year's production for the same period.
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