Securitization People and Markets

cStatic pools remain the domain of the credit derivatives desk headed by Boaz Weinstein. Zeitlin's new group creates a CDO platform that centralizes all managed deals, whether synthetic or cash flow, for all asset classes. As of last Thursday, staffers were still awaiting an internal memo on the matter. Ted Meyer, a spokesman at Deutsche Bank, referred calls to Zeitlin who did respond.

Andrew Weber has joined Deutsche Bank's collateralized debt obligation structuring group from J.P. Morgan Securities. He will report to Anand Parekh, who heads the group out of New York. Weber was unavailable for comment. Ted Meyer, a spokesman at Deutsche Bank, declined to elaborate.

Banc of America Securities has hired Brian Edmonds to head up its Treasury trading desk. Edmonds, who will also be responsible for trading the benchmark 10-year sector and will be based in New York, says he will have about 10 Treasury traders reporting to him. He reports to government securities boss Kurt Harrison. Prior to joining B of A, he had been a co-head of Treasury trading at Credit Suisse First Boston, where he ran the desk for several years with Pat Haskell. Before CSFB, he worked at Lehman Brothers with Harrison. He left CSFB about six months ago, according to CSFB spokesman John Gallagher.

ABN Amro has hired a commercial mortgage-backed securities trader to be based in New York, according to a firm insider. Stephen Adang, who joins from Amherst Securities, will be responsible for trading U.S. CMBS and some European paper. Adang, who held a similar position at Amherst, will report to John Mullen, global head of securitization at ABN in London. The hire is part of ABN's push to increase its CMBS business (BW, 4/3). An ABN Amro spokesman did not respond to inquiries by press time last Thursday.

Robert Hoffman has left Morgan Stanley where he was the firm's senior asset-backed securities banker specializing in rate reduction bond deals, according to an individual at the firm. Hoffman reported to Gail McDonnell, managing director and head of ABS finance. McDonnell did not return repeated calls seeking comment on the bank's plans to replace Hoffman or the reason for Hoffman's departure. Hoffman could not be reached for comment. A banker at Morgan Stanley says that Jack Kattan, v.p., also an ABS banker in McDonnell's group, would be filling in for Hoffman, but it remains unclear whether he would do so on a permanent or temporary basis. An ABS analyst outside the firm confirmed that Kattan is the de facto banker in charge of rate reduction transactions for the firm. Kattan declined to comment.

Royal Bank of Scotland is seeking to hire a European high-yield trader for its London office, says an official familiar with the search. The position is newly created and the trader will report to Stuart Booth, head of structured credit. Booth could not be reached for comment. Although many other firms are scaling back in high yield, RBS is hiring because it has a small team in place and wants to maintain its presence until the market pulls out of this quiet period, notes the official. Nick Coates heads up RBS' high-yield origination effort and the firm also has three analysts covering the asset class.

The 25% loss recently reported by hedge fund manager Beacon Hill Asset Management was a result of a series of duration bets gone awry, according to several mortgage-backed securities professionals who have traded with the hedge fund. In short, the fund had structured a leveraged bet that interest rates would not continue to drop; when rates continued to decline, the fund was stuck with a large short position in the 10-year note, the primary beneficiary of the rate rally. Beacon Hill's CIO, Tom Daniels, referred questions to Wallach and Associates, who did not provide comments by press time.

TD Securities has hired Donald Noe to the new position of head of global research, supporting portfolio management teams in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia, according to Derrick Herndon, New York-based portfolio manager at the firm. Herndon says the hire is part of an effort begun firm-wide roughly a year ago to actively manage the firms' credit portfolios. Noe was a senior managing director at Moody's Investors Service, but resigned in May 2001. He could not be reached, and his reporting responsibilities could not be determined.

MONY Capital Management, a subsidiary of the MONY Group, is looking for an asset-backed securities analyst. Bill Sidford, senior managing director and chief ABS portfolio manager, says the new hire will replace an analyst who recently left and will bring the number of ABS analysts to four. The analyst would report to Sidford. He or she would cover various asset classes such as credit card or autos, without any particular specialization. Sidford says he is "hopeful" of filling the position before year-end.