Deutsche Bank Securities hired Hyung Myung Peak from RBS Greenwich Capital as a managing director and head of private-label CMO trading and Adam Yarnold from UBS as a director and head of ARM trading. Both new hires report to Managing Director Anilesh Ahuja, head of MBS trading at Deutsche Bank.
Assured Guaranty Corp. has hired Shrootin Shah as a director in its London-based ABS team, reporting to Managing Director Jack Lester. Shah had been was a senior member of Commerzbank AG's ABS team in London, where he focused on both traditional and non-traditional asset classes, including balance-sheet and real-estate transactions as well as complex insurance-related structures.
FGIC recently hired Alexander Masri as managing director in the corporate secondary markets, responsible for secondary markets and structured credit insurance for its ABS and international businesses. Masri joins from Ambac, where he was a first vice president in the structured finance and credit derivatives group.
Credit Suisse First Boston is looking to hire a vice president level home equity strategist with two to four years of relevant industry experience and a detailed knowledge of home equity issuers. The new strategist will report to U.S. ABS research head Rod Dubitsky.
Swiss Re Capital Markets has hired Stefano Sola as senior vice president in sales, reporting to Managing Director Judith Klugman, who heads the sales and marketing of insurance-linked securities and asset-backed products. Sola joins from IXIS Capital Markets, where he was a director in the New York-based structured credit products group. Prior to that, Sols had been an associate director at Bear Stearns in London.
Nick Butler has joined Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP as special counsel in its London based Capital Markets department, where he will focus on structured finance with an emphasis on securitization. He has represented investment banks, arrangers and issuers in transactions throughout the U.K. and Europe. Cadwalader has made several additions recently to its London-based group aiming to further enhance its capabilities and reputation in the firm's Capital Markets practice in the U.K. and Europe.
SG Corporate & Investment Banking launched its new U.S. RMBS group and hired five new employees to staff the team, the company announced last week. David Chang joins Soc Gen from Deutsche Bank Securities as a director in the whole-loan trading group. Abner Figueroa joins as a relationship manager from Eurohypo AG. Carole Mortensen joins as a director from UBS where she managed various areas for RMBS and ABS products. Rob Pak moves over from the Soc Gen CDO structuring group. Yuan Zhou joins as a director, where he aims to develop proprietary default and prepayment curves.
Calyon Securities named Chris Chang vice president in the structuring team of the bank's loan syndications group, reporting to Managing Director and head of structuring Amy Trapp. Chang had spent the past four years an assistant vice president in the syndications group at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi.
The Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle announced last Thursday that it removed two members from its board - Bank of Hawaii President Allan Landon and Washington Federal Savings CEO Roy Whitehead - after the board deemed that there was "an appearance of impropriety" when the respective institutions redeemed $25.4 milllion and $48 million of stock in the Seattle FHLBank in October last year. The board is requiring the institutions to repurchase the FHLBank stock that these institutions improperly sold off.
Serious delinquencies and charge-offs in the home equity loan sector remained low in January 2005, according to the Moody's Investors Service's Home Equity Index Composite, released this morning. In January, the 60-plus day delinquency rate totaled 5.55%, an almost 27% decrease from January 2004's 60-plus day delinquency rate of 7.59%. The charge-off rate has been decreasing steadily since March 2004 and hit its lowest level in seven years in January 2005 The 0.75% charge-off rate for January represents a 32% improvement over the January 2004 charge-off rate of 1.10%.
Computershare Limited announced it has completed purchase of the assets of the internet-based data reporting service absreports.com from Jersey-based professional services firm Mourant Limited. Computershare intends to add new features and additional content toabsreports.com and to broaden the appeal of the product to other structured finance markets.
Capital One Financial announced the launch of a new Web-based auto-loan help center offering potential consumers advice articles, FAQs, a glossary of terms and other useful auto useful auto finance-related information. "The vast majority of car buyers will need a loan for their purchase, so we created our help center to give them the tools they'll need to make smart choices," said Capital One Vice President Brian Reed.
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