Sandler O'Neill, the niche investment-bank devastated by the Sept. 11 attacks, has hired Charles Smart and Dhiren Toolsidas, two structured product research veterans from defunct e-trading network Visible Markets, to rebuild its fixed-income quantitative analytics effort. The positions are new, and Sandler O'Neill insiders were uncertain as to who had held the positions previously. Smart and Toolsidas will report to John Doyle, the firm's head of fixed-income. Smart will be a managing director, Toolsidas an associate director. Doyle did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Smart says a part of their job will be analyzing customer portfolios to maximize duration, hedge and yield management opportunities, as well as formulating investment strategy for its structured product client base. They will work closely with collateralized mortgage obligation trading veteran Alan Roth, another VM alum, who recently joined Sandler. Toolsidas and Smart were at Nomura Securities International from 1996-2000, where Smart became head of the firm's high-profile CMO origination and trading effort. Both left when the department reorganized under the current fixed-income chiefAlex Noujaim.