Boutique investment bank The Williams Capital Group has added a new division called Eland Capital to address structured finance opportunities for corporate, federal, state and local government clients.
Eland is led by William Lighten, who has more than 20 years of Wall Street experience and has held various key leadership positions within Lehman Brothers’ securitization and mortgage
businesses, including being global head of structured finance and global head of the mortgage capital division.
Eland Capital’s other principals comprise seven seasoned finance and research professionals including, Nadja Fidelia, Damian Harbutt, Vinay Karle, Prafulla Nabar, Gopalkrishna Rajagopal, Nelson Soares and Samir Tabet. Combined, these individuals have an average of over 20 years management and product experience in fixed income and structured finance areas.
These areas include ABS/RMBS and related quantitative research, mortgage loan origination, fixed-income sales and trading as well as equity, equity derivatives and fixed-income quantitative research and analytics.
Eland Capital will focus on a variety of asset and mortgage finance opportunities such as securitization, whole loan dispositions as well as asset valuation and advisory services.
The firm will also leverage its quantitative research capabilities to offer portfolio analysis and asset management services.
“Against the backdrop of distressed housing, mortgage and consumer-ABS markets over the last few years, the currently improving economic conditions will create interesting opportunities for our clients,” Lighten said.
“We are delighted to expand our capabilities with the addition of the highly talented Eland
Capital structured finance team to our banking, trading and research operations within Fixed
Income,” said Christopher Williams, chairman and chief executive officer of Williams
Capital. “The Eland team, consisting of professionals that rank among the best in the industry, puts us in a strong position to service our clients across these markets.”
