Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets appointed Patrick Cogan as a director in its securitized products group headed by Kate Grant. He will be working on the bank's ABCP conduit, Cancara, and reporting to Chris Rigby, head of conduit structuring. Cogan was previously at XL Capital Assurance.
Russell Almeida has joined Ares Management as an associate in the investor relations group. In his new position, Almeida will be working with investors in Ares' alternative investment funds. Previously, he headed up investor marketing at Lehman Brothers for ABCP conduits and other securitization structures.
Citadel Investment Group announced three senior hires to its global fixed income business. Timothy Bryan Wilkinson, a former head of fixed-income proprietary trading at Lehman Brothers, will join Citadel's proprietary trading group along with John Alexander Goodridge, who also joins from Lehman where he was a senior proprietary trader. Alex Maddox, also from Lehman, will join Citadel as head of securitized products in Europe. All new hires will report to Patrik Edsparr, head of global fixed income and chief executive officer of Citadel Europe. Before heading FID proprietary trading at Lehman, Wilkinson was a European bond option and short swaption market maker at Merrill Lynch. Goodridge was as a senior fund manager at Shooter Fund Management prior to joining Lehman. Maddox was with Lehman in London for 14 years, most recently as managing director of securitized products trading. He established Lehman's mortgage trading desk, and had served as head of residential mortgage, ABS and CMBS trading and risk for Europe. Maddox has also served as director, head of credit derivatives trading at GreenwichNatwest.
Barclays Capital has named a new management team made up of its own veterans and those of recently acquired Lehman Brothers, a source familiar with the firm has confirmed. Former Lehman Brothers investment bank head Skip McGee has been appointed the head of Barclays investment banking group. Barclays veteran Eric Bommensath will lead the firm's fixed income group. Barclays also announced other leaders of research, equities, institutional sales, commodities and other groups. Barclays agreed to buy Lehman Brothers' North American investment banking and capital markets assets for $250 million and the bankrupt investment bank's New York headquarters and two New Jersey-based data centers for $1.5 billion, bringing the deal total to $1.75 billion. Lehman Brothers had trading assets worth approximately $72 billion and trading liabilities estimated at $68 billion.
Societe Generale announced several appointments in its corporate and investment banking and global investment management services departments. Jean-Pierre Mustier, formerly chief executive officer of the bank's corporate and investment banking, is now the head of global investment management and services and will be appointed chairman and CEO of SocGen's asset management. He will replace Alain Clot, whose new position within the group will be announced later. Michel Peretie has been appointed head of SocGen's corporate and investment banking.
NewOak Capital recently tapped industry heavyweights for its integrated advisory/asset management/structured product firm. The senior appointments include Managing Directors Jess Saypoff, formerly of Barclays Capital, as chief counsel; James Dougherty, formerly of Deutsche Post Bank and JPMorgan Investment Management; Ross Heller, formerly of JPMorgan Securities; Neil McPherson, formerly of ABN Amro and Credit Suisse; Shanker Merchant, formerly of Wachovia; and Precilla Torres, formerly of Citigroup and Lehman Brothers. The firm's other recent appointments include Arjun Kakar from NIBC; Peter Heintz from UBS; Max Marquardt from Citigroup; Alex Razumny from Bear Stearns as director; and Irina Shulmanovich from Fortis Securities as associate director. Launched to offer expert client solutions to the global market crisis, NewOak Capital gives analysis, valuation, restructuring, risk transfer and distressed asset management solutions and services to financial institutions to support their portfolio and corporate needs. As co-founder and chief executive officer, Ron D'Vari, former head of structured finance at BlackRock, is responsible for advisory, solutions and portfolio management. Co-Founder and President James Frischling, former head of U.S. structured credit at Fortis Securities, is responsible for capital markets, client management and business affairs.
New York-based Ramius, a privately owned global alternative investment firm with approximately $11 billion in assets under management, has hired a chief of distressed investments and two other professionals to head up a new credit trading group. Kenneth Grossman has been named managing director of distressed investments, joining the firm from Del Mar Asset Management, where he was a partner and portfolio manager. Separately, Norman Milner and Rick Dowdle, both formerly of Arx Investment Management, join Ramius as co-portfolio managers of the firm's newly formed credit trading business. At Arx, Milner served as partner, portfolio manager and head of trading, while Dowdle served as partner and portfolio manager. "Their appointments will enable us to further take advantage of market opportunities and dislocations in the credit arena by building on to our existing capabilities in those areas," Jeffrey Solomon, one of the founders and a managing member of Ramius, said in a release. "Ken's extensive experience in distressed investing and Rick and Norman's global credit trading expertise make them terrific additions to our team." Ramius employs a series of strategies, with a focus on investments that offer low correlation to each other and to the return patterns of traditional assets such as equities and fixed income. The firm offers global macro trading, PIPES, options trading, merger arbitrage, distressed ABS, Asia invent-driven investments and risk management.
Following in Fannie Mae's footsteps, Freddie Mac announced effective-immediately changes in its senior management and organization. The company's three business lines - single-family credit guarantee, headed by Senior Vice President Donald Bisenius; multifamily sourcing, headed by Senior Vice President Michael May; and investments and capital markets, headed by Senior Vice President Gary Kain - will report directly to Freddie Mac Chief Executive Officer David Moffett. This new structure effectively eliminates the need for a chief business officer; Patricia Cook, who had held that position, is leaving the company. The GSE also named Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller David Kellermann as acting chief financial officer, reporting directly to Moffett, while it undertakes an external search to fill the position on a permanent basis. Chief Financial Officer Anthony Piszel is departing the firm. All of the company's credit management activities will now be consolidated under a single new position, chief credit officer, also reporting directly to Moffett. Raymond Romano, senior vice president, credit risk oversight, will be the acting chief credit officer reporting directly to Moffett while the company conducts an external search. The Federal Housing Finance Agency Senior Vice President Robert Tsien, will move into the Freddie Mac's compliance and regulatory affairs division, headed by Senior Vice President Jerry Weiss. As previously announced, Freddie Mac has ceased all lobbying and political activity. As a result, Timothy McBride, senior vice president, government and industry relations, is also leaving the company.
Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking has launched a new structured investment products Web site dedicated to U.S. markets. The site's address is: www.sg-structuredproducts.com. This new Web site focuses on education and has been created to serve as a reference center offering information about structured investment products. It is designed to be a source of information for both distributors and institutional and qualified individual investors who wish to stay informed on new developments in the industry. The site includes dynamic payoff illustrations, secondary market metrics, and new issue pages to highlight current products and underlying innovations. According to the Structured Products Association, structured investment products have become the fastest growing asset class in the U.S., with issuance having quadrupled in the last five years, reaching $120 billion in 2007.
Markit postponed the launch of the Markit ABX.HE 05-2 index because of current market conditions. The ABX.HE is a tradable synthetic index of U.S. subprime ABS. As previously announced, the Markit ABX.HE 05-2 index was scheduled to launch on Oct. 2. A new launch date has not been determined.
A lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Kenosha Unified and four other Wisconsin school districts that invested in a CDO that has lost more than $150 million and is still decreasing in value, according to published reports. The lawsuit, filed in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, names the investment firm Stifel Nicolaus, Royal Bank of Canada, and James Zemlyak, who was the chief financial officer for Stifel Nicolaus at the time of the deal. David Noack, who also worked for Stifel Nicolaus and gave several sales presentations, wasn't named in the final suit, despite earlier assertions that the districts were considering legal action against him. Kenosha Unified School District's portion of the investment - which was initially $37.5 million - was valued at $5.8 million as of Sept. 25, almost a 50% drop from two weeks earlier. Kenosha Unified, along with Whitefish Bay, Waukesha, West Allis and Kimberly School Districts borrowed a combined $200 million, believing interest made on the investments would outpace interest paid out on the loans.
A plan to streamline Columbus, Ind.-based Irwin Financial Corp. by selling off $1 billion home equity loans has failed. The company, which has $5.9 billion in assets, is working to restructure itself after heavy losses. Irwin said last Wednesday that its deal to sell the loans and their servicing rights to Roosevelt Management Co. in New York did not get the required approval from a third party. However, a separate plan to work with Roosevelt to securitize $275 million of home equity loans is unaffected, Irwin said. The firm, which has been struggling to remain well capitalized, also said it intends to raise $50 million in a rights offering. Irwin also stated that it is considering exchanging some outstanding trust-preferred securities for common stock. The company has lost money for six straight quarters, including $107 million, or $3.64 a share, in the second quarter. Irwin's stock climbed 1.26% Wednesday, to $4.
GMAC-RFC's businesses in the U.K. and Europe will consolidate to form an international asset management company, with no origination of new home loans likely in the foreseeable future. According to market reports, around 130 jobs are expected to be eliminated as a result of the merger. Simon Knight will remain as chief executive of the new firm.
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