Merrill Lynch has hired Victor Martinez, a 10-year veteran of the buy-side at Metropolitan Life. He fills the collateralized mortgage obligation research slot left open when analyst Mike McCarthy moved over to the trading desk several months ago (BW, 3/24), says his new colleague, commercial mortgage backed securities analyst Roger Lehman. Martinez, who started last Monday, will report to U.S. fixed-income strategist and mortgage-backed securities research boss Ken Haeckel. At Met Life, which has an actively managed MBS portfolio of nearly $20 billion, Martinez was both a trader and sector manager. Haeckel declined to comment on whether there would be additional hires in the MBS department, adding "as soon as Victor gets the lay of the land here, he'll start publishing his calls in the [MBS research weekly] Mortgage Investor."
Merrill Fills CMO Research Slot With Buy-Side Veteran