Ifigenia Palimeri of Moody's Investors Service has been promoted to team managing director. Palimeri reports to Detlef Scholz, group managing director of Moody's EMEA securitization group. Palimeri will co-head the CMBS team together with Daniel Kolter, team managing director. In addition to shared responsibilities for the European CMBS conduit business and CMBS emerging market activities, Palimeri will focus on property-related whole business transactions (WBS), and CMBS-specific training initiatives and will oversee the CMBS monitoring function. According to sources at the agency, the newly created position is a testament to the growth of the EMEA CMBS business into a well-developed stand-alone asset class with specialist originator activity and an increasingly sophisticated investor base. In 2006, Moody's said it saw activity increase in the sector by more than 50%. Palimeri joined Moody's U.K. as an associate analyst in January 2002 and was promoted to vice president-senior credit officer in July 2006. In August 2006, she was appointed team leader of the rating agency's EMEA CMBS team. Prior to joining Moody's, Palimeri worked at Ernst & Young in New York within the real estate consulting group for five years.
RBC Capital Markets named Doug McGregor and Mark Standish co-presidents of the investment-banking arm of RBC. Both co-presidents will report to Chuck Winograd, who will still serve as CEO of RBC Capital. RBC Capital Markets recently bought Daniels & Associates and Carlin Financial Group, added a U.S.-based CMBS team to its North American real estate platform, and entered the 24-hour futures trading business. It also expanded its U.S. public, infrastructure and municipal finance businesses. In the U.K., the firm achieved Nomad status on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and expanded its structured products capability in Asia. Standish and McGregor are jointly responsible for chairing the operating committee in its oversight of day-to-day operations globally. Standish, who is based in New York, will stay focused on the bank's global activities in debt markets, financial products, proprietary trading, alternative investments, foreign exchange, commodities, prime brokerage services and funding. Meanwhile, McGregor will oversee the firm's global activities in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, and equity sales and trading. He is also in charge of the North American real estate brokerage, financing, capital markets and advisory business. He is based in Toronto.
Word has it that Societe Generale is looking to recruit a senior executive to build up its student loan ABS structuring team, market sources said. The bank, however, could not confirm such plans by press time.
Last week Citigroup announced a reorganization of its fixed-income business. The management shake up involved Citigroup executives in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The changes in administrative heads include, Sandeep Arora serving as COO and Jeff Carleton as chief risk officer. Meanwhile, Jo-Anne Williams will serve as CFO. The announced heads of the group include Chad Leat and Mark Watson, who head credit markets. Jeff Perlowitz will oversee securitization while Mark Tsesarsky will lead special situations, securitization. Suni Harford will be in charge of fixed-income strategy and analysis, and Steve Bowman, previously global head of sales, will head the newly created hedge fund services business group. There were also changes in the line-up for regional heads. Richard Moore will be the regional head for Europe, Middle East and Africa while Jeremy Amias will oversee the Asia-Pacific region. Ricardo Braga will be in charge of Latin America and Mexico, and Brian McCappin and Michimasa Naka will lead Nikko Citigroup.
Guy Carpenter & Co., a global risk and reinsurance specialist, appointed Chi Hum as global head of distribution for insurance-linked securities in its investment banking specialty practice. The move is a bid to strengthen the firm's capital markets investor contacts and place securities and derivatives with investors. Hum will also assist in placing collateralized reinsurance transactions with capital market investors. He previously worked for Swiss Re Capital Markets, where he led efforts to build its investor base in catastrophe bonds and collateralized debt obligations. He was also a principal at Zurich Investment Management, a Centre Re company. He has also worked in distributing structured finance products for companies such as Chase Manhattan, CIBC and Mellon. Guy Carpenter also hired Ajay Junnarker as CFO. He will lead its finance and corporate services departments and develop the company's capital markets business. Junnarker was previously director in the strategic development group of Marsh & McLennan Cos.
GSC Group appointed David Goret as senior managing director. Goret, who joined the company in 2004, currently serves as GSC's general counsel and chief compliance officer.
The U.K. Financial Services Authority (FSA) has launched Issues Log, a tool designed to tackle Basel II implementation issues. The log will track the development of discussions within the Securitization Standing Group (SSG) on issues arising from the implementation in the U.K. of the Revised Basel Accord and the Capital Requirements Directive. The European Securitization Forum (ESF), together with the London Investment Banking Association (LIBA), the British Banker's Association (BBA) and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), will be responsible for collecting members' feedback on specific open issues as well as bringing new issues to the agenda of the SSG.
Dominion Bond Rating Service will use Lewtan Technologies ABSNet and ABSNet Cash Flows services to help strengthen its presence in the European structured finance market. "ABSNet provides DBRS with the largest surveillance and cash flow model library of ABS deals in Europe, which will be instrumental in helping us to quickly expand our European rating services," Victoria Johnstone, senior vice president at the structured finance quantitative group at DBRS, said. She added that ABSNet Cash Flows allows DBRS to accurately model the asset cash flows as well as note payment rules. These capabilities allow "us to test each tranche under a variety of economic scenarios. Given that ABSNet also makes their own models available to subscribers at the pre-issuance stage, this contributes significantly to market transparency," Johnstone said.
(c) 2007 Asset Securitization Report and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.asreport.com http://www.sourcemedia.com
