James Nimberg, a mortgage backed securities analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston, has accepted a new position as an interest-only/principal-only trader at J.P. Morgan Securities. Kevin Finnerty, the head of MBS at J.P. Morgan, says Nimberg will fill the slot created by the departure of Matt Weinberg, who left several weeks ago for Lehman Brothers (BW, 6/16). "We think he'll be pretty good given his five years of research experience at CSFB," says Finnerty. Nimberg will report to Alan Galishoff and work alongside Jay Fiacco, a more veteran IO/PO trader. J.P. Morgan was the winner of the most improved trading desk award in BondWeek's inaugural MBS survey (BW, 5/21).
Nimberg is the latest of several veteran CSFB MBS analysts to leave the firm for J.P. Morgan over the past several months (BW, 3/24, 4/28). Reached at his desk at CSFB last Thursday, he says his boss, mortgage strategist Satish Mansukhani, (who is himself a recent addition from Bear Stearns) is now the sole veteran MBS analyst at the firm. Mansukhani did not return a phone call seeking comment. CSFB has been rumored to be aggressively seeking to restock its once high-profile MBS research operation, with mortgage pros on various dealers' desks reporting receiving CSFB feelers. The prospects for an immediate replacement are apparently not too bright, with one MBS research veteran noting "It isn't too compelling to go to a shop that is in the news everyday with bad headlines."