Mark Mahoney this week joins Wachovia Corp. as head of capital markets after leaving his post as president of First Union Institutional Debt Markets. He will report to John McLean, senior executive v.p. in charge of corporates services. He declined to discuss specifics regarding any expansion plans for the group. Currently, there are 450 people working in capital markets at the bank, but Mahoney would not say whether or not he would be looking to hire more. In his new position, Mahoney will be overseeing loan syndication and trading, in addition to debt and equity businesses. He will be replacing Doug Williams and J. Peter Peyton, who were co-heads of the group and are moving into risk management and merchant banking,
"It's a great opportunity to step back into a role I partially had before," said Mahoney. At First Union Mahoney was in charge of a roughly $3.9 billion portfolio almost exclusively invested in loans, he said. Prior to that, Mahoney was head of investment banking at First Union, where loan syndications also fell under his responsibilities. Mahoney said Tom Finke, a member of his current team at First Union, will be taking over his responsibilities.