Deutsche Bank has hired Nick Letica and Charles Smart to strengthen its agency collateralized mortgage obligation trading desk. Ted Meyer, a Deutsche Bank spokesman, says the move is congruent with the firm's recent push to expand its MBS capabilities (BW, 7/8).
Letica, who was unavailable to comment, joins from Banc of America Securities in New York, where he was head of the firm's agency CMO trading desk. Prior to that, he was a long-time trader at Bear Stearns, which he left in a shake-up after Josh Weintraub was hired in 2000. His position is newly created and he will report jointly to mortgage- and asset-backed securities trading chief Fred Brettschneider and John Kinol, head of fixed-income derivatives. Brettschneider did not return a call seeking comment. Letica started Monday.
Under Letica's leadership, B of A was the sixth ranked CMO underwriter, with $14.5 billion issued so far this quarter, according to Bloomberg. Deutsche Bank underwrote $900 million for the same period, ranking 16th.
Smart, who joined last Monday, will structure new agency and whole loan issues, as well as doing risk management for the CMO desk. He referred a call seeking comment to Meyer. His position is new. He was last at FTN Financial, better known as First Tennessee Capital Markets, where he was in charge of developing a CMO issuance effort. He left the firm last October after it decided to reduce its expansion plans in that sector (BW, 10/13). Smart rose to prominence as co-head of the MBS group at Nomura Securities America, which he left in March of 2000, subsequently filing an arbitration against the firm in August of that year (BW, 8/17).