Michael Koenitzer and Alberto Zonca, who were both longtime directors in Credit Suisse's ABCP conduit group, left the bank about three weeks ago. Market insiders say the two were laid off after the investment bank apparently decided to eliminate redundancies in the section of the ABCP group that handled deals from the consumer asset classes. "A lot of conduit shops - not that they are downsizing - are keeping fairly lean ships," said one market source. "You don't need 50 people to run your business [on the conduit end]." Koenitzer had a 16-year history with Credit Suisse, beginning when he was recruited in Zurich. Since then, he worked for the bank in Geneva, London and New York City. He spent 12 years with the asset finance group in New York and London, where he originated liquidity facilities for student loan auction rate bonds. From 2001 to 2004, he worked in London, setting up Credit Suisse's conduit origination capabilities in Europe. During that time, he closed the first credit card deal originated from Eastern Europe. He worked in New York since 2004. At one point, New York-based Koenitzer was in charge of originating, structuring and executing ABCP transactions through its multi-seller conduit. Zonca was with the bank for at least 10 years. Credit Suisse declined to comment.
Deutsche Bank has boosted its Asia-Pacific commercial real estate (CRE) group with two new hires to its Hong Kong office. Christopher Dunn moves from the bank's New York office to fulfill the role of managing director and co-head of CRE ex-Japan Asia. He will lead the team jointly with Greg Wells, head of CRE China, who joined from Paul Hastings last December. Dunn and Wells will look to drive CRE securitization and principal finance business across the region. They will be joined by Paul Richardson, formerly a director of Deutsche's CRE group in Japan. Richardson will focus on originating CMBS deals.
Barclays Bank PLC made a couple of key appointments to its investment banking division, Barclays Capital, last week. It recruited Bill Archer as managing director and head of its U.S. leveraged credit risk group, and Vincent Breitenbach as managing director and head of credit research for the Americas. Working from New York, Breitenbach will oversee research for U.S. investment grade, high yield and securitization as well as corporate credit research for Latin America. He will report to Mark Howard, managing director and head of research at Barclays Capital. Archer will oversee the leveraged credit risk management team within the investment bank's global financial risk management department. Previously, Breitenbach was a managing director at Countrywide Financial Corp., where he oversaw fixed income investor and bank relations, rating agency relationship management and internal capital structure advice. He was also a managing director at Lehman Brothers, covering corporate bond research for specialty finance companies, U.S. banks and securities firms. Archer was a managing director and co-chairman of the capital markets committee at Goldman Sachs. He also worked at Deutsche Bank for three years and at Bankers Trust for 18 years before that. Archer is based in New York and reports to Ian Prior, a managing director and chief credit officer for the Americas.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP has hired Nicholas Politan as a partner in its New York office. Previously a co-chair of Bingham McCutchen's project and structured finance practice group, Politan will focus on domestic and cross-border energy-related transactions. "Nick will add depth to our strong global finance practice, and strengthen our M&A and project capabilities in the energy sector," Ken Doran, managing partner of Gibson Dunn, said.
CapitalSource, a U.S.commercial finance firm, has selected Senior Investment Officer Eleanore Clarage to open and manage its new office in Cincinnati. Clarage will be mostly responsible for the origination of FHA-insured mortgage loans for multifamily, healthcare, elderly, and specialized housing assets. The new appointee has more than 20 years' experience originating and underwriting FHA-insured mortgage loans for these types of assets and she also has a lot of experience with for-profit and not-for-profit owners. She has developed multifamily and hotel assets, serviced Fannie Mae multifamily loans, and provided consulting to organizations seeking Title X land development loans and CDBG and special assistance funds.
Citigroup has folded its emerging-market sales and trading operations into its global fixed income business. Randy Barker and Geoffrey Coley, the former co-heads of global fixed income capital markets, will be heading up the combined units with Paco Ybarra who had been running the emerging markets sales and trading division. Although the emerging markets division was a standalone business at the firm, fixed-income encompassed trading and sales business covering several groups, including securitization and global interest rates.
Ralene Ruyle, the chair and chief executive of Bear Stearns' EMC mortgage subsidiary, is retiring after a 19-year stint at the bank. Prior to joining Bear Stearns, Ruyle was at Murray Mortgage and Foster Mortgage. She was also chairperson of the Fidelity advisory board and the Mortgage Bankers Association loan administration committee.
Excess spread in the Royal Bank of Scotland's U.K. credit card deals Arran Funding 2005-A and 2005-B has been overstated for the periods from December 15, 2005 to January 31, 2006 and for the monthly periods ending February 28, 2006 to October 31, 2006. The servicer is currently addressing the issue and preparing corrected reports. However, it believes that the quarterly excess spread has remained above the 4.5% spread trapping trigger.
U.K. banks raising money by securitizing their assets will gain a boost under a new tax regime that is expected to receive parliamentary approval. Ed Balls, economic secretary to the Treasury, is behind the plan to make permanent a stop-gap rule exempting securitization vehicles new accounting regulations.
The smoke ban now looks imminent for U.K. pubs. The U.K. Department of Health announced that all English enclosed public places and workplaces will become smoke free from July 1, 2007. Hardest hit are expected to be pubs, restaurants and private clubs which have, over the past, year been preparing for the impact the ban could have on sales.
Fitch Ratings said that U.K. non-conforming residential mortgage-backed securities arrears, defined as three months or more, have remained stable in Q306 although sold repossessions and cumulative losses have continued to rise. In a report published last week, Fitch highlights the rating actions taken during the past quarter and provides details on Farringdon Mortgages No. 2 plc following its first reserve fund draw. Fitch also upgraded four tranches of the Mortgages Plc transactions. Mortgages No. 5 plc and Mortgages No. 6 plc have experienced a healthy growth in credit enhancement levels due to the sequential pay-down structure of the notes and high prepayment rates.
A special note was issued for Deutsche Bank's DECO 2005-U.K. issued from its CMBS conduit, that informs noteholders that following a grace period the required interest and principal payments were not made on one of the loans, Kashani Investments Ltd. It has consequently been transferred to special servicing. Dresdner Kleinwort analysts said that the loan is relatively small in size and accounts for just 1.1% of the portfolio.
Issuance of U.S. prime jumbo mortgages rose during 3Q06 , according to a recent report by Standard & Poor's. After hitting a $79.3 billion peak in 4Q05 then dipping in each of the following two quarters, issuance increased again. The $57.3 billion total was up $8.6 billion (or 18%) from 2Q06. "Relative to 2005, issuance levels are still lower as a result of higher interest rates and a reduction in housing price appreciation," said Steve Tencer, a director at the rating agency's residential mortgage-backed securities group. Issuance for third-quarter 2006 was off $13.5 billion (or 20%) from the corresponding period a year earlier.
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