Bear Stearns has tapped Dan Spina, a quantitative specialist who is a senior managing director and head of financial analytics and structured transactions at the firm, to be its head of fixed-income research. Spina was on vacation last week and could not be reached for comment, according to Michelle Agostinho, a firm spokeswoman. She was unable to provide further details at press time.
One senior Bear Stearns research official says he believes the position is newly created, and is meant to rearrange reporting lines to further separate research from profit-driven areas such as trading, sales and investment banking. If so, it would be consistent with ongoing efforts by the firm to forestall regulatory scrutiny into potential research conflicts. Earlier this year, Bear Stearns kept its analysts away from a high-yield conference, and reportedly also banned them from pitching new deals to investors (BW, 6/9).