Moody's Corp. reorganized its businesses into two divisions. A new division, called Moody's Analytics, will pull Moody's KMV, Moody's Economy.com and other businesses out of its rating agency business, along with the sales and marketing divisions of the entire company.
Most familiar to the structured finance industry is the rating agency, Moody's Investors Service, which will continue to provide credit ratings and related research. The rating agency named Brian Clarkson as its president and COO, with overall responsibility for leading its rating and research business. A 16-year veteran of Moody's, Clarkson has been co-COO and executive vice president since 2004. In that role, Clarkson, 51, was responsible for overseeing the agency's global structured finance, global project finance managed funds and U.S.-based public finance businesses, along with its sales and marketing activities.
Christopher Mahoney, 52, is now vice chairman of Moody's Investors Service. In that role, he will be consulted on a range of corporate initiatives. Previously, Mahoney was executive vice president and co-COO, responsible for its global corporate, financial institution and sovereign ratings.
Mark Almeida, 47, won a promotion to senior vice president of Moody's Corp., with responsibility for directing the Moody's analytics division. Having joined the company 19 years ago, Almeida was most recently senior managing director of the investor services group. He will now oversee Moody's businesses that provide data, research, and data and analytical services to institutional investors, credit professionals and other capital markets professionals.
Roddy Sloan joined the UBS global real estate business as the new global head of real estate fund of funds and securities. Sloan, who will be based in London, will supervise the existing global real estate securities business, which continues to be headed by both Bruce Ebnother and Laurent Wunderli. Though UBS representatives declined to offer further details about the hire, they said that Sloan will be a member of the global real estate management committee and will report to Paul Marcuse. "[Sloan] brings a wealth of real estate experience in Europe and Asia to the team, including six years as a senior portfolio manager, [and] most recently he was global head of business strategy with AXA Real Estate Investment Managers," UBS said in a statement. "Roddy's appointment underlines the continued expansion of our global and regional product offerings in both listed and unlisted real estate products reflecting our clients' evolving needs for global real estate exposure."
Dave Arnold has joined the RMG team and will be partnering with Didi Parks to increase RMG's market share as a due diligence and credit risk service provider. Previously, Arnold was at LaSalle Bank, and prior to that spent over eight years as a vice president at Deutsche Bank. Dante Jackson has joined the RMG team and will be heading up RMG's due diligence operations group. Jackson has more than 12 years of experience in the due diligence sector and has worked for firms such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America. RMG is still expanding its services and portfolio size. RMG's portfolio of securitizations and whole loan pools that are being monitored has increased beyond the $100 billion level. Trevor Murray has joined the UBS CDO research team, with a focus on all types of CDO transactions, including an expertise in commercial real estate, specifically CMBS and CRE CDOs. Previously, Murray was a research analyst at Credit Suisse.
Dominion Bond Rating Service appointed Jerry Marriott as managing director of Canadian RMBS/ABS. This appointment follows the decision made by Mike Buzanis, formerly head of Canadian structured finance, to leave DBRS for personal reasons, effective immediately. Marriott will be responsible for the overall operation and management of DBRS's Canadian RMBS and ABS ratings and will report to Huston Loke, group managing director and head of global structured finance. DBRS has also made further changes to the Canadian structured finance group to align it with the sector focus of its global ratings business. Canadian CMBS will be headed up by Tim Westlake, senior vice president, who will continue to report to Jack Toliver, managing director and head of CMBS. Canadian CDOs will continue to be headed up by Jamie Feehely, senior vice president, reporting to Loke.
Babson Capital Management promoted Clifford Noreen to a newly created role of vice chairman. Thomas Finke was also promoted to president in addition to being head of the U.S. bank loan team and distribution, marketing and relationship management teams. Finke replaces Roger Crandall, chairman and chief executive of Babson Capital. Noreen, also head of corporate securities, has more than 26 years of industry experience. He oversees public equity and corporate credit-related investments that include public and private bonds, mezzanine and private equity investments, and structured credit products. He joined the firm in 1985 and began leading the high-yield team in 1992, where he was responsible for oversight of all public high-yield portfolios. He is also president of MassMutual Corporate Investors and MassMutual Participation Investors-public closed-end funds for Babson Capital. Finke has more than 18 years of industry experience. He joined the firm in June 2002 as part of the company's acquisition of First Union Institutional Debt Management, where he was co-founder and president. Both will continue to report to Roger Crandall, chairman and chief executive of Babson Capital. Crandall said the changes reflect his immense confidence in the talent, management strength and accomplishments of both Noreen and Finke.
Cohen & Co. hired Frederick Horton as a managing director. In his new role, Horton will oversee development of new strategic business opportunities. He will be based in the firm's New York office and report to Chris Ricciardi, Cohen's CEO. Horton has 24 years of experience in the structured finance industry, primarily in asset management. Prior to Cohen, he was senior managing director at GSC Group, where he founded and led the company's structured finance team. Before GSC, Horton was a managing director and head of structured investments in MBS at The TCW Group.
PMI Insurance Services recruited longtime structured finance executive Richard Sullivan to head its European capital markets business. In that role, he will obtain capital markets insurance business from London, where PMI Insurance Services is based. Sullivan previously worked at Dresdner Kleinwort, which he joined in 2002. There, he established the Livingstone origination platform and was responsible for developing its principal and leveraged finance activity, as well as its ABCP conduits business. Prior to Dresdner, Sullivan was director and deputy head of securitization and head of ABS Europe for Societe Generale from 2000 to 2002.
CIFG has established separate corporate communications and investor relations departments under the direction of John Pizzarelli, head of global public finance and infrastructure, investor relations and communications. Michael Ballinger joins CIFG after a 22-year stint at MBIA as managing director and
head of corporate communications. Meanwhile, Thomas Collimore, previously director and head of investor relations, has been promoted to managing director and head of investor relations. As director of corporate communications at MBIA, Ballinger was responsible for media relations, client marketing and corporate communications. "I am delighted to join the CIFG and I am looking forward to the challenge of building its global brand," Ballinger said of his appointment.
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) launched new European LCDS documentation on July 30, 2007, which went into effect last Monday. The new "template" differs from the previously published U.S. form in several features, ISDA said. For example, while the U.S. form is a reference entity-based contract, the European form is a reference obligation-based contract referring to a specific credit agreement rather than all loans of a particular reference entity.
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