Sunita Ganapati, head of collateralized debt obligation research at Lehman Brothers and an Institutional Investor-ranked analyst, has left for a buy-side role at Wells Fargo. Ganapati, who had worked from San Francisco, will remain in the Bay Area as head of the bank's proprietary structured credit investment book. Ganapati, who joined Wells Fargo in recent weeks, declined comment.
Although Wells Fargo previously made proprietary structured credit investments, someone familiar with its plans said it intends to ramp up participation in the market with the hire of Ganapati, who was the top-ranked CDO researcher in the 2003 II All-America Fixed-Income Research Team poll and took home the category's bronze medal last year. As a prop book, it will make opportunistic investments across asset classes and at all levels on the capital structure, the person said. It could not be determined how large Wells Fargo's prop book currently is or how large it may grow to.
Claude Laberge, analyst on the Lehman CDO research team, did not return a call by press time regarding the team's plans to replace Ganapati.
