Securitization People and Markets

Standard Bank hired Greg Gonzalez, an emerging markets bond trader from WestLB. Gonzalez started last Monday. The position is a newly created one for the New York-based branch office of the South African bank. Gonzalez says he will trade Latin American corporate bonds, as he did at WestLB, plus some more exotic sovereign bonds from Colombia, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Uruguay. The broadening of his trading experience is one of the reasons for his move, he explains.

MetLife Investments has hired Bob Halgren as a telecom analyst covering both high-yield and high-grade credits, according to analysts with knowledge of the situation. Halgren fills a position that had been open since Saba Hekmat went to OppenheimerFunds in November. He could not be reached, and John Wand, head of credit research at MetLife, declined comment. Halgren worked for some 15 years at Prudential Financial both in New Jersey and in London, according to one former colleague.

Morgan Keegan is looking to make about five new hires for a fixed-income sales office the firm has established in New York. Peter Lozier, who joined the firm last summer to build the New York team, says he is looking for people with established account relationships in any and all of the principal fixed-income product areas. He is open to hiring more than five people, but says that fixed-income sales has been such a profitable occupation over the last couple of years that recruitment has not been easy. Morgan Keegan underwrote some $32 billion in U.S. debt last year, placing it 12th among U.S. investment banks in 2002, according to Bloomberg.

SWS Securities, a financial services firm with fixed income sell-side operations in six U.S. cities, is hoping to hire as many as 10 corporate bond salespeople for its New York office. Rob Nash, the firm's Dallas-based head of fixed-income, says SWS Securities has been looking to increase its fixed-income presence for several months. The effort got an important boost, he says, when the firm persuaded Andrew Conway to join in New York as senior v.p. and head of corporate bond trading. Conway resigned from RBC Capital Markets at the end of last year to take what he says is "a phenomenal opportunity with a growth firm." He had worked at the firm for 25 years as a corporate bond trader. A call to Simon Ling, Conway's former boss at RBC, was not returned.

Alliance Capital has hired Dina Sbare to the position of v.p. in the high-yield research group. An analyst with knowledge of the situation says Sbare was hired to fill a position that had been vacant, though the name of her predecessor and the reason for the vacancy could not be determined. Sbare declined comment when reached at Alliance, as did Kate Kutasi, head of U.S. high-yield, distressed and private securities research at the firm.

Bear Stearns plans to add two more analysts to its investment grade research team. Doug Colandrea, the firm's head of investment-grade research for North America, says he has been interviewing for a senior analyst position to cover real estate investment trusts, and hopes to have it filled by the end of the quarter. "We have a major commercial mortgage operation and we feel we can leverage off of that and pick up REIT's," he says. He is also looking for a mid-level analyst to follow basic industries or some other area where the firm's coverage is currently thin or non-existent. Colandrea says that hire will likely come later in the year.

BNP Paribas has made a number of appointments in its credit businesses in the Americas, according to an internal memo obtained by BondWeek. The appointments are part of a global reorganization the firm announced earlier this month integrating its derivatives, high-yield, high-grade and emerging markets businesses. David Fergione, who ran the high-grade business, has left the firm, according to a senior firm official. Fergione's departure was not mentioned in the memo and he did not return a call to his residence. However, Fergione has signed up for a free subscription to Bloomberg with the tag line: "Jerry Springer is really quality T.V. Go Birds!," according to one market observer, who added, "He may be on the payroll, but it sure sounds like he's spending his days at home to me."

Jim Galgano retired from Morgan Stanley last Wednesday where he was the head of pass-through trading, according to several MBS officials at the firm. Galgano had spent 24 years in the securities business. A call to his residence seeking comment was not returned by press time last Thursday. Galgano spent the majority of his career at Morgan Stanley, having gotten his start in the industry working in money markets at the Bank of New York. Through mid-2001, Galgano was actively involved trading 30-year conventional pass-throughs, but over the past 18 months, firm officials say he had assumed more of an administrative role. Paul Scialla, the firm's 30-year trader, declined to comment, saying, "we'll need about a week to finalize a decision."

Libertas Partners, a new high-yield dealer based in Greenwich, Conn., has recruited two new senior saleswomen, according to Sal Abbatiello, the firm's coo and president. They are Catherine Frey, a senior saleswoman who worked most recently at Bear Stearns but has taken two years off, and Laylyn Kenyon, who has sold junk bonds at Salomon Smith Barney and Barclays Capital. Both women will be managing directors, and they bring the new firm's secondary sales, trading and research effort up to seven people. Abbatiello says he hopes eventually to make 23 more hires. "The number of extremely qualified people out there right now is unbelievable," he says.