Merrill Lynch managed to retain collateralized mortgage obligation trading and sales veteran Laura Zwak after she announced her intention to join Morgan Stanley's growing CMO effort last Tuesday, according to an individual close to the situation. This insider says that increased compensation was the basis for her decision to stay at Merrill. Zwak was unavailable to comment.
Zwak's resignation announcement, in the words of a colleague in Merrill's mortgage-backed securities department, "really bummed us all out." This mortgage pro described her as being "excellent with both agency and whole loan product and, because she was a trader, she understood relative value really well." Harley Bassman, head of the MBS department at Merrill, declined to comment on her decision to remain at Merrill other than to note "don't count your chickens before they hatch."
Zwak was to fill a newly created slot at Morgan Stanley and was to report to agency CMO desk chief Pat Russell, who declined to comment. At Merrill, she has been a jack-of-all trades on the CMO desk, responsible for short-end CMOs, later moving on to trade inverse and principal only bonds, CMO floaters and agency ARMs (BW, 6/24/01). Within the last several months, says the Merrill insider, she moved to the sales desk.