Salomon Smith Barney has hired three mortgage veterans to boost its efforts in sub-prime mortgage backed security origination, according to a memo obtained by BondWeek. Evan Mitnick joins from Greenwich Capital Markets, Randy Appleyard comes from AGS Financial and Ken Mulford joins from Merrill Lynch. The three will be v.p.s and report to Susan Mills, the director of the firm's mortgage origination efforts. Mills says the hires are to fill the gaps left by the departures of Jay Lown and Christine LaVelle several months ago. She says that the hires, who average 10-15 years of MBS origination experience, are also congruent with the firm's decision to focus more effort in the whole loan origination area, noting that future additions to the group would be at the junior level.
At GCM, Mitnick was responsible for the small business loan, franchise loan and timeshare loan sectors. Mitnick will be responsible for originating transactions in the sub-prime area. Mulford was in charge of the sub-prime mortgage origination effort at Merrill Lynch, reporting to group head Harley Bassman. Mills says he will work within both the prime and sub-prime areas. Appleyard comes from a shop he founded in 1994, Rye, N.Y.-based AGS Financial, after he and partner Debbie Griscom both left Credit Suisse First Boston. Griscom says that she will now run the firm, which does a lot of international consulting with first time MBS issuers. She says that Appleyard was sick of all the travel. Mills says that he will be responsible for overall coordination of coverage and the execution of transactions.