UBS launched a new series of senior management job cuts within its securities unit as it gets out of real estate, securitization and "exotic" structured products, according to an internal memo. The memo, dated Jan. 21, outlined that bankers Todd Morakis, Sascha Prinz, David Sacco and Chris Ryan will depart UBS, which is also getting out of the municipal bonds and proprietary trading, as well as all commodities businesses except for precious metals. UBS will consolidate its existing financial products under a new macro, credit and workout group. Carsten Kengeter and Jeff Mayer, global co-heads of fixed income, currencies and commodities, will oversee the credit business, while emerging markets will be headed by Ritesh Dutta and subsumed into the macro group. UBS said that Roberto Isolani and Fabian Shey will co-head the firm's global sales effort organized under client services, whereas its quant analysis and research group will be managed by Steve Dugdale.
Oak Hill Advisors hired Christine Daley as managing director in its investment team focusing on the stressed and distressed credit markets. Daley was previously managing director at Lehman Brothers, where she co-managed the distressed debt and special situations proprietary desk, was head of distressed debt research, and was co-head of high yield research. Daley has been investing in distressed since 1991. She joined Bear Stearns as a senior analyst in the high yield and bankruptcy department and worked there until 1993. From 1993 to 1995, she was senior vice president of distressed at Lehman Brothers. She rejoined Bear Stearns in 1995 and was co-head of distressed research until 1997. Before returning to Lehman Brothers in 1999, she was as an executive director of UBS and a portfolio manager for an internal credit hedge fund there.
Amherst Securities Group hired Blake Myers as a salesperson. Myers, who is based in Amherst's New York City office, was formerly at UBS, where he was one of the investment bank's MBS salespeople. Myers brings 16 years of experience in the bond business. While at UBS, he managed a sales team that worked with clients in different sectors such as insurance companies, money managers and hedge funds. Before working at UBS, Myers held a similar role at JPMorgan from 2000 until 2003. From 1993 until 2000, he was an MBS salesman at Nomura Securities.
Morgan Stampfl is looking for a head of distribution as well as three to four fixed-income sales and structured sales professionals. Contact estampfl@morganstampfl.com for further details.
The Carlyle Group hired Ian Jackson as a director of Carlyle Strategic Partners. Based in London, Jackson will be involved with European distressed investment opportunities. Jackson joins from Deutsche Bank, where he was a senior analyst in the European distressed products group, investing across the capital structure from senior secured debt to equity, liquidations, refinancings, private equity and special situations. Before this, Jackson spent five years working for Deutsche Bank's Japanese distressed products group in Tokyo.
The general manager of BSEC Iad Georges Boustany is leaving the company, he said in an email to colleagues and contacts last week. Boustany leaves after seven years with the Lebanon-based structured finance firm, where he developed the firm's securitization business, specifically in the SME space.
Ginnie Mae issued $24 billion of MBS in December. With the increasing volume, the agency asked the Obama Administration for a 50% increase in staff. "We sent in a request for additional people," GNMA president Joseph Murin told ASR sister publication MortgageWire. Ginnie Mae wants to add 30 people to its current staff of 61. Murin said the Obama transition team has supported his request. "We're just waiting for appropriations," he said. "We're looking for analytic types." For calendar year 2008, the GSE issued $270 billion in MBS and has also been issuing even more MBS than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Hannover Re Group announced changes to its executive board last week, which will take effect starting July 1. Ulrich Wallin has been appointed as the new chief executive officer. He succeeds Wilhelm Zeller, who is retiring at the end of June 2009. Zeller led the Hannover Re Group for more than 13 years. Wallin has sat on the executive board since 2001. He will be responsible for the following central divisions: specialty division, direct and facultative, group protections and insurance-linked securities. Elke Konig, the chief financial officer of Hannover Re Group, is leaving the executive board. She will be succeeded by Roland Vogel, who has headed the Hannover Re Group's finance and accounting division since 2001. Vogel has been with the firm since 1989.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) plans to extend the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program (TLGP) in an attempt to encourage consumer lending. The FDIC announced last week that it would change the TLGP provision to insure some assets for 10 years, increasing from three years. The shift, which will be effective this month, will accommodate the longer maturities of covered bonds. The FDIC announced the program in October.
France is pushing for the European Central Bank (ECB) to head efforts aimed at introducing central clearing for off-exchange traded derivatives and cutting risk in a sector partly blamed for the credit crunch, according to market reports. French Economic Minister Christine Lagarde wants the Eurosystem - made up of the ECB and national central banks in the 16-nation single currency area - to push the dealer community toward a speedy solution. A tentative European industry agreement to clear trades in the $40 trillion credit derivatives sector collapsed earlier this month. Big dealers said they want to clear all their global trades in one clearing house, preferably in the U.S., to save on capital they must tie up to back trades.
Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins announced that a class action lawsuit is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York on behalf of investors in the MBS and ABS certificates of JPMorgan Acceptance Corp. The suit is based on false and misleading registration statements and prospectus supplements issued between January 2006 and March 2007 by JPMorgan Acceptance. The complaint charges JPMorgan Acceptance, certain of its officers and directors, and the issuers and underwriters of the certificates with violations of the Securities Act of 1933. JPMorgan Acceptance was formed in 1988 to acquire, own and sell interests in those assets. JP Morgan Acceptance is a subsidiary of JPMorgan Securities and is engaged in mortgage lending and other real estate finance-related businesses. The complaint alleges that on July 29, 2005 and February 8, 2006, JPMorgan Acceptance and the defendant issuers caused registration statements to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in connection with the issuance of billions of dollars of certificates. The certificates were issued pursuant to prospectus supplements, each of which was incorporated into the registration statements. The certificates included several tranches that had various priorities of payment, exposure to default, interest payment provisions and/or levels of seniority. The certificates were backed by large pools of mortgage loans. The registration statements indicated that the mortgage pools would primarily consist of loan groups generally secured by first liens on residential properties, including conventional, adjustable-rate and negative amortization mortgage loans.
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