Greenwich Capital Markets has hired Karim Bhayani to head up the structuring of new issue collateralized mortgage obligations. Bhayani, who will be a v.p., fills a newly created role and reports to mortgage-backed securities structuring chief Neil Ahuja. He started at GCM in late December. His prior job was as a v.p. on the CMO origination desk at J.P. Morgan Securities, where he reported to CMO trading and origination chief Alan Galishoff. Bhayani left JPMS in late October, after the firm began a fixed-income division wide cost-cutting drive.
An individual close to J.P. Morgan says that Bhayani, though respected and profitable at JPMS, "got caught up in the game of musical chairs," where he was "either the most junior guy," or was "being evaluated against more profitable traders and originators." J.P. Morgan mortgage boss Kevin Finnerty did not return a phone call seeking comment. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan in the winter of 2000, he worked at Nomura Securities International, where he was a director and reported to managing director and CMO head Charles Smart.
In terms of his new workload, Bhayani might actually be busier than he had been at JPMS, as GCM clocked in at eighth, with $33 billion in issuance, in the closely watched Bloomberg league tables, ahead of much larger rivals Merrill Lynch and JPMS.