Citigroup Global Markets has moved Managing Director Glen McDermott to its structured credit sales team, with the responsibility of selling both cash and synthetic credit derivatives, reporting to Saul Kattan. Ratul Roy will assume McDermott's responsibilities as head of U.S. CDO research strategy, reporting jointly to U.S. fixed income strategy co-heads Arvind Rajan and Michael Schumacher. As a result, Roy will relocate from Citigroup's London office to its New York office.
Moody's Investors Service has created a new group, the Structured Credit Product Development Team, to be headed by Team Managing Director Gary Witt. The new group will focus on adding transparency and analysis to new market segments, particularly the hedge fund arena. Witt will look to add an unspecified number of new hires in the coming months to fill out the team. Assuming Witt's former responsibilities is Yvonne Fu, who was promoted to team MD in the move. Fu joined Moody's in April 1997. Monitoring of collateralized fund obligations will continue to be the responsibility of Witt's group.
Maxim Advisory hired Tony Huang, previously from Highland Capital Management as a managing director in its CDO group, as well as Jung Lieu as an assistant vice president from Fitch Ratings. To date Maxim has issued three CDOs, totaling $3.75 billion. "With the addition of these two investment professionals, Maxim's portfolio management team has been nicely enhanced," said Wing Chau, head of Maxim's CDO division.
Bear Stearns has named Senior Managing Director Steve Abrahams as head of global liquid product strategies. In this new position, Abrahams will coordinate all of the firm's rate markets research, focusing specifically on expanding delivery to Europe and Asia. He will also continue his role guiding MBS and agency CMO research. Since joining the firm in 2001, Abrahams has headed the agency CMO strategy team and helped to launch Bear's weekly publication Across the Curve in Rates and Structured Products in 2003. Recently, Abrahams has played an interim role trading agency CMO derivatives.
Dominion Bond Rating Service recently appointed Huston Loke as the new head of the rating agency's structured finance group. Based in Toronto, Loke reports to DBRS COO David Schroeder. Loke takes over the duties of Greg Nelson who has left to pursue other opportunities. Loke, who was also appointed assistant group managing director, is in charge of the global structured finance operations. Loke has been with DBRS for more than 10 years, most recently running the Canadian structured finance group.
Wachovia Securities has hired Brian McManus as its new head of CDO research, replacing Arturo Cifuentes, who left the firm in April. McManus, the former head of CDO research at Merrill Lynch, will be based in Charlotte, N.C., and report to Brian Lancaster, head of structured products research at Wachovia. Prior to joining Merrill, McManus was a quantitative analyst of mortgage-backed securities and collateralized mortgage obligations at Dean Witter.
WestLB recently structured and arranged a $44 million securitization facility for Claas KGaA mbH units Claas of America and Claas Omaha. The facility is backed by agricultural equipment receivables originating from several hundred agricultural equipment and parts dealerships in the U.S. and Canada. The $40 million senior A class is funded by WestLB conduit Paradigm Funding, while the $4 million subordinated B class is funded by Landesbank Hessen-Thueringen Girozentrale.
Morgan Stanley said last Wednesday its profit fell 83% in the third quarter as it took a $1 billion charge to write off the value of its aircraft financing business. Revenues did climb, however, to $6.95 billion, the highest level since 2Q02 and a 29% increase from $5.39 billion in the year-ago quarter. Without the one-time charge, Morgan Stanley would have earned $1.74 billion, or $1.09 per share.
RBC Capital Markets announced that it has become a participating dealer in the electronic trading platform offered by MarketAxess Holdings Inc. RBC becomes the first Canadian dealer to join the MarketAxess platform and brings the total number of dealers participating on the global platform to 24. Jonathan Hunter, head of liquid products at RBC Capital Markets said, "We're building on our strong electronic distribution capabilities in the European markets, and MarketAxess allows us to broaden our European corporate bond distribution to institutional investors."
CarMax Inc. reported that its income from its finance unit operations increased 15% compared with the same quarter last year. This was spurred by an increase in originations and managed receivables, which more than offset the decline in gain spread. The gain on loans sold as a percent of loans sold was 3.3% in the second quarter, slightly below the normalized range of 3.5% to 4.5%, according to the company. Additionally, its Drive Financial subprime finance provider contributed approximately 1% of CarMax's 10% used unit growth.
UCC Capital Corp. completed a $40 million securitization facility for apparel company Rampage, as part of the company's acquisition by Iconix Brand Group Inc. The seven-year deal is backed by brand royalty revenues associated with Rampage, a young women's apparel retailer based in Los Angeles.
Takefuji Corp., the third-largest consumer finance company, completed a 220 billion ($2 billion) receivables-backed facility via Merrill Lynch, according to reports. The three-year deal, backed by a full MBIA wrap, can be extended annually. In July Takefuji completed a similar 170 billion transaction, also via Merrill.
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